UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT  LOS  ANGELES 


TTMnrBUCTT^r   /-»r.   ^» 


A    SURVEY    OF     THE    WOMAN 
PROBLEM 


A  SURVEY  OF  THE 
WOMAN    PROBLEM 


FROM     THE    GERMAN     OF 

ROSA    MAYREDER 

By   HERMAN   SCHEFFAUER 


NEW   YORK  MCMXIII 

GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


Printed  in  England. 


^v-" 


PREFACE 

In  this  book  I  have  dealt  in  my  own  way  with  the 
problems  of  the  woman's  movement.  Although  in  some 
respects  I  am  not  in  entire  agreement  with  this  move- 
ment, I  regard  it,  nevertheless,  as  one  of  the  phenomena 
which  honourably  distinguish  the  present  epoch  from 
all  previous  periods  of  human  history;  nay,  more,  it 
seems  to  me  to  be  one  of  the  finest  manifestations  of 
an  epoch  which  otherwise,  in  its  poverty  of  ideals,  of 
noble  feelings,  and  of  passionate  beliefs,  betrays  evidence 
of  degeneration. 

Many  of  the  ideas  contained  in  my  work  may  fre- 
quently have  been  expressed  before.  The  first  outlines 
were  made  fifteen  years  ago,  and  certain  experiences  of 
my  early  youth  gave  me  the  initial  impulse  to  write  it. 
Those  readers,  however,  who  are  already  acquainted 
with  the  literature  on  the  subject  will,  I  hope,  find 
enough  that  is  new  to  compensate  them  for  what  is  old; 
while  that  large  majority  which,  unfortunately,  still 
knows  very  little  about  the  movement,  must  remain 
satisfied  with  the  comprehensive  view  of  it  which  I  have 
endeavoured  to  present.  Some  of  the  essays  have 
already  appeared  in  various  periodicals,  and  in  stringing 
them  together  it  has  been  impossible  to  avoid  repeti- 


2081GO 


vi  Preface 

tions.  These  will  not  vex  the  reader  who  recognises 
that  certain  truths  cannot  be  repeated  too  often,  since 
that  which  stands  to  reason  does  not  necessarily  compel 
belief,  and  that  which  is  proved  is  not  always  admitted. 

The  woman's  movement  is  due  to  three  different 
causes,  and  has  three  different  aims  in  view.  In  my 
opinion,  these  ought  to  be  considered  separately,  how- 
ever intimately  they  may  be  connected  with  one  another, 
and  however  true  it  may  be  that,  taken  in  conjunction 
with  one  another,  they  constitute  the  essential  move- 
ment. Its  threefold  basis  is  economic,  social,  ethical- 
psychological. 

During  the  few  years  in  which  the  movement  has 
begun  to  pass  from  the  theoretical  stage  to  the  political, 
the  economic  and  social  problems  have  come  to  the  front, 
while  the  ethical-psychological  part  has  been  kept  in  the 
background.  I  have,  however,  not  dealt  at  all  with  the 
economic,  and  only  slightly  with  the  social,  sides  of  the 
question.  Although  I  recognise  that  without  the 
economic  revolution  caused  by  the  introduction  of 
machinery  the  movement  could  hardly  have  become  a 
practical  one,  yet  I  maintain  that  historically  it  has  an 
idealistic,  not  a  materialistic,  origin.  However  great 
an  influence  the  economic  impulses  may  exert,  much 
more  importance  is  to  be  attached  to  the  ideal  postulates 
of  the  woman's  movement.  Economic  improvements 
would  have  little  effect  in  changing  the  real  relations  of 
the  sexes.  Even  if  a  woman  were  able  to  gain  her 
living  independently  of  man,  still  she  would  not  be 
free  unless  quite  other  influences  began  to  operate  in 
her  favour. 

The  female  sex  will  never,  the  old  idealist  Hippel  to 
the  contrary  notwithstanding,  be  set  on  an  equal  footing 


Preface  vii 

with  the  male  merely  as  a  result  of  "  the  magnanimity 
and  sense  of  justice  of  man."  Although,  personally,  I 
am  absolutely  convinced  that  these  are  the  distinctive 
qualities  of  noble  manhood,  I  still  think  that  the  world 
at  large  is  moved  by  more  elementary  influences,  and  not 
by  magnanimity  or  a  sense  of  justice.  That  is  true  both 
of  the  ethical-psychological  relations  of  the  sexes  and 
also  of  their  relations  in  the  economic  affairs  of  life. 

I  mention  this  emphatically  and  at  once  in  order  to 
avoid  the  accusation  that  I  have  taken  up  the  cudgels  on 
behalf  of  the  female  sex  against  the  male.  Indeed,  I 
have  purposely  avoided  the  question  as  to  the  superiority 
of  one  sex  over  the  other.  fKn  unprejudiced  judgment 
could  be  given  only  by  a  person  who  belonged  to  neither 
sex.  Speaking  for  myself  alone,  and  as  a  mere  matter 
of  subjective  taste,  I  would  give  the  preference  to  the 
male  sex,  but  that  seems  to  be  a  prejudice  naturally 
inherent  in  the  femalej 

To  the  majority  of  women  as  well  as  men,  Kant's 
dictum  on  mankind  in  general  will,  unfortunately,  apply 
all  too  well :  "If  you  ask  whether  mankind  is  to  be 
regarded  as  a  good  species  or  as  a  bad,  I  must  confess 
that  it  has  not  much  to  boast  about."  Certainly,  the 
ordinary  woman  has  as  little  reason  to  boast  as  the 
ordinary  man,  and  we  ought  to  cease  attempting  to 
formulate  any  sweeping  judgments  about  either  sex  as 
a  whole.  This  method  of  generalisation  is  one  of  the 
vulgar  mental  habits  of  the  present  day  which  tend  to 
confound  the  superior  individual,  the  man  who  rises 
above  the  average,  with  the  mass.  The  average  man  or 
woman,  whether  of  the  upper  or  of  the  middle  class, 
is  in  no  sense  interesting,  and  the  ordinary  sex-charac- 
teristics do  not  make  the  study  of  either  any  more  attrac- 


viii  Preface 

tive.  People  begin  to  be  interesting  only  when  they 
differ  from  the  ordinary  type  of  their  sex,  when  they  are 
possessed  of  a  certain  individuality  and  emerge  from  the 
common  rut.  Then  the  vicissitudes  of  their  lives  attain 
a  personal  dignity,  they  are  no  longer  commonplace,  they 
have  passed  beyond  the  limitations  of  the  type. 

This  book  may  be  open  to  the  accusation  of  dealing 
too  much  with  exceptional  examples,  masculine  and 
feminine,  and  it  may  also  be  said  that,  although  such 
exceptions  do  occur,  yet,  broadly  speaking,  the  differ- 
ences between  the  sexes  do  not,  as  a  rule,  entitle  us  to 
question  their  validity. 

What  do  we  know  of  the  psycho-sexual  qualities  of 
human  beings,  even  of  those  with  whom  we  are  well 
acquainted }  How  difficult  it  is  to  lay  bare  the  soul  of 
man,  so  loth  to  allow  itself  to  be  examined,  so  swift  to 
hide  itself  behind  conventionalities  as  soon  as  it  is 
conscious  of  being  observed!  And  how  crude  and 
barbarous  seem  all  our  methods  of  expression  when  we 
approach  that  delicate,  ethereal,  manifold  thing! 

Is  it  possible  for  a  man  to  be  really  understood  when 
he  differs  from  the  ordinary  run  ?  Even  when  desirous 
to  do  so,  would  he  be  able  to  interpret  himself  to  those 
from  whom  he  differs.''  In  ordinary  intercourse  with 
other  men  only  the  superficial  and  conventional  aspects 
become  visible,  the  inner  and  more  personal  traits  are 
not  revealed  except  to  those  of  a  similar  temperament. 
That  is  the  reason  why  the  untypical  remains  so  fre- 
quently unobserved,  while  the  average  type  is  supposed 
to  be  more  common  than  it  really  is. 

What  should  we  have  known  of  human  nature  if  it 
had  not  been  for  the  revelations  of  those  who  have 
shown  themselves  to  us  in  their  works?     Such  revela- 


Preface  ix 

tlons  furnish  the  material  which  I  have  used  with  respect 
to  its  symptomatic  significance  in  the  second  part  of  the 
book.  It  is  the  recognition  of  ideas,  not  their  propaga- 
tion, for  which  I  have  striven.  I  do  not  expect  to  con- 
vince opponents,  for  that  would  mean  the  conversion  of 
people  of  a  different  type,  and  I  do  not  believe  that 
people  of  radically  different  temperaments  can  come  to 
any  understanding  by  intellectual  means.  Even  when 
they  are  intellectually  equal,  they  cannot  approach  one 
another  by  reasonable  argumentations,  for  all  convic- 
tions— at  least,  all  genuine  convictions — are  only  the 
outward  expression  of  the  inward  nature.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  men  do  not  talk  or  write  in  order  to  carry  con- 
viction to  other  men,  but  only  to  express  their  own. 
Those  who  are  experienced  in  the  subtleties  of  thinking 
know  that  every  sort  of  opinion  may  be  asserted  and 
proved,  and  also  doubted  and  controverted.  The  battle 
of  opinions,  however  thoroughly  and  by  whatsoever 
methods  it  may  be  carried  on,  is  a  mere  idle  game  when 
it  does  not  indicate  the  expression  of  tendencies  which 
are  vital  to  the  individuality  of  the  thinker. 

I  desire  only  that  this  book  may  come  into  the  hands 
of  those  who  are  akin  to  me  through  having  similar 
perceptions,  and  I  hope  that  it  will  give  them  the  kind 
of  pleasure  that  we  all  experience  when  we  see  reflected, 
as  in  a  mirror,  the  expression  of  our  own  inward  feelings. 

Rosa  Mayreder. 


CONTENTS 


FACE 

Preface  v 

Outlines  i 

Motherhood  and  Culture  37 

The  Tyranny  of  the  Norm  74 

On  Masculinity  90 

Woman  as  the  Gentlewoman  124 

Women  and  Types  of  Women  142 

Family  Literature  172 

The  Canon  of  Ideal  Womanhood  183 
On  the  Subject  of  the  "  Strong  Hand  "         193 

The  Subjective  Fetich  of  Sex  224 

Vistas  of  Individuality  242 


OUTLINES 

The  problem  of  sex  psychology,  and  in  particular 
of  feminine  psychology,  centres  in  the  question — Is 
woman  condemned  by  her  sex  to  a  definitely  circum- 
scribed mentality  or  is  there  the  same  possibility  of 
unlimited  individual  modifications  in  the  feminine 
nature  as  in  the  masculine  ? 

We  get  little  light  from  theoretical  researches  as  to 
how  far  mental  sex  differences  affect  the  nature  of 
various  individuals.  We  merely  learn  that  as  great 
a  variability  exists  among  women  as  among  men,  and 
hence  that  within  their  physiological  limits  there  is 
plenty  of  scope  for  the  play  of  individuality.  Decisive 
results  cannot  be  expected,  because  those  researches  are 
carried  out  in  a  domain  where  the  fundamental  con- 
ceptions are  still  indefinite  and  dubious. 

Psychology  has  come  off  very  badly  in  the  struggle 
between  the  spiritualistic  and  materialistic  views, 
between  the  dualistic  and  monistic  conceptions  of  the 
world,  so  characteristic  of  the  intellectual  life  of  the 
present  day.  When  we  have  no  certainty  as  to  what 
is  meant  by  Soul,  Spirit,  Reason,  Intelligence  or  even 
Consciousness,  when  the  most  divergent  views  are 
taken  of  the  relation  between  the  soul  and  the  body, 
how  can  any  trustworthy  data  be  obtained  with  regard 
to  the  sexual  differentiation  of  the  human  ''  psyche  ".? 

B 


2  A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

The  greatest  confusion  has  been  caused  by  the 
generalising;  methods  which  it  has  been  customary  to 
adopt.  Such  terms  as  "  the  male  "  and  "  the  female  " 
are  employed  as  if  they  expressed  some  actual  meta- 
physical entity  existing  in  and  distinguishing  every  man 
from  every  woman. 

Yet  it  is  evident  that  such  generalisations  have  been 
drawn  from  experiences  concerning  merely  a  more  or 
less  extensive  group  of  individuals,  from  experiences 
m  which  chance,  prejudice  or  the  subjective  nature  of 
the  observer  play  too  large  a  part.  The  contradictory 
ideas  concerning  "  woman  "  that  have  in  this  way  been 
launched  into  the  world — for  various  reasons  "  man  " 
has  to  a  great  extent  been  spared  such  ticketing — are 
so  drastic  in  their  effects  because  they  pretend  to  have 
an  objective  value  by  virtue  of  these  wide  generalisa- 
tions. From  the  literature  on  the  theme  of  <'  woman  " 
one  obtains  the  odd  impression  that  the  character  of 
one-half  of  mankind  is  strangely  unknown,  impene- 
trable, and  enigmatic.  Human  beings  who  take  part 
everywhere  in  the  actualities  of  life,  and  whose  natural 
qualities  are  similar  to  those  of  the  male,  are  treated  as 
fabulous  animals,  as  proper  subjects  for  myths  and 
legends. 

Conceptions  of  femininity  are  so  wavering  and  in- 
definite that  there  is  no  common  agreement  as  to  what 
fundamental  qualities  are  denoted  by  that  word.  This 
may  best  be  shown  by  a  collection  of  quotations  from 
various  authors,  each  of  which  may  be  taken  as  repre- 
sentative of  views  of  which  countless  examples  could 
be  given.  First,  there  is  that  view  which  considers 
pliancy  and  submission  as  the  characteristic  female 
qualities.      Lombroso   says  this   is   due  to   a   sense  of 


Outlines  3 

devotion,  a  sense  which  is  always  evolved  in  the  rela- 
tions between  a  lower  and  a  higher  being.  George 
Egertoa,  on  the  other  hand,  considers  that  "an  ancient 
insatiable  desire  for  power  is  the  motive  force  among 
women  "  and  that  in  their  eyes  a  man  is  only  *'  a  big, 
comical  child." 

Gentleness  is  so  commonly  considered  as  a  feminine 
attribute  that  Virchow  describes  it  as  an  "  adjunct  of 
the  ovary."  Havelock  Ellis,  however,  affirms  that 
nervous  irritability  is  a  characteristic  which  has  always, 
and  with  justification,  been  assigned  to  the  female. 
Another  not  less  common  conception  is  that  woman 
likes  stability  and  dislikes  innovations.  Mobius 
declares  that  "  women  are  strongly  conservative  and 
hate  all  innovation  "  and  Lombroso  that  "  the  history 
of  legislation  shows  the  peculiarly  conservative  tendency 
of  women  and  its  influence  on  social  arrangements." 
And  yet  Hippel  asserts  that  "  the  spirit  of  revolution 
broods  over  the  female  sex,"  and  in  Heine  we  find 
that  "  the  element  of  freedom  is  always  alive  and  active 
in  the  minds  of  women." 

Bachhofer  declares  that  "Law  is  innate  in  women, 
that  to  abide  by  it  is  their  natural  instinct,"  and  William 
Hartpole  Lecky  is  of  the  opinion  that  women  are 
superior  both  in  instinctive  virtues  and  in  those  which 
arise  from  conviction  and  a  sense  of  duty.  Eduard 
von  Hartmann,  on  the  contrary,  declares  that  the 
female  sex  is  unjust  and  unfair.  Schopenhauer  con- 
siders that  "  unjustness  is  a  fundamental  trait  of  female 
character,"  and  Lombroso  has  discovered  "  a  half- 
criminaloid  being  even  in  the  normal  woman." 

A  very  common  view  is  expressed  by  Julius  Duboc, 
"  In  all  ages  it  has  been  an  understood  thing  that  women 

B   2 


4  A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

must  not  transgress  the  code  of  propriety — but  pro- 
priety, of  course,  consists  merely  in  keeping  within  the 
bounds  recognised  by  the  majority."  The  two  brothers 
Goncourt  declare,  on  the  other  hand,  that  "  the  chief 
strength  of  women  consists  in  their  power  of  going  to 
extremes." 

Kingsley  apostrophises  woman  as  "  the  only  true 
missionary  of  civilisation,  of  fraternity,  of  tender,  self- 
sacrificing  love,"  but  in  the  words  of  his  fellow- 
countryman  Pope,  "  every  woman  is  at  heart  a  rake." 

Havelock  Ellis  considers  that  under  ordinary  circum- 
stances a  woman  can  do  as  much  work  as  a  man,  but 
that  she  cannot  work  under  high  pressure;  von  Horn, 
in  opposition  to  this,  avers  that  "  when  it  is  a  question 
of  fulfilling  very  heavy  requirements  the  female  is  often 
far  superior  to  the  male  and  shows  a  tenacity  and 
endurance  which  put  him  to  shame." 

Lotze  says  that  "  the  female  hates  analysis  and  is 
therefore  incapable  of  distinguishing  falsehood  from 
truth";  but  according  to  Lafitte :  "the  female  prefers 
analysis,  but  the  male  the  observation  of  the  relations 
between  things  ";  while  according  to  Lombroso :  "In 
synthesis  and  abstract  reasoning  the  female  intelligence 
is  defective;  its  strength  lies  in  acute  analysis  and  in 
the  vivid  comprehension  of  details."  Nietzsche,  in  con- 
tradiction to  an  almost  unanimous  opinion,  says  that 
those  "who  know  how  to  discriminate  .  .  .  will  per- 
ceive that  women  have  intelligence  and  men  emotion 
and  passion." 

The  most  opposed  opinions  prevail  even  with  regard 
to  the  attitude  of  woman  towards  love,  a  subject  which 
is  certainly  most  intimately  interwoven  with  her  sexual 
peculiarities.      Some  authors  insist  that  faithfulness  is 


Outlines  5 

a  fundamental  principle  in  women,  since  the  duties  of 
motherhood  cause  them  instinctively  to  seek  perman- 
ence in  love.  To  quote  Krafft-Ebing  :  "  Certainly  the 
inward  tendency  of  a  woman's  heart  is  towards  mono- 
gamy, whilst  man  is  inclined  towards  polygamy";  and 
Schopenhauer :  "  A  man's  love  diminishes  from  the 
moment  of  its  gratification;  he  longs  for  change.  A 
woman's  love,  on  the  contrary,  increases  from  that  very 
moment.  .  .  .  He  is  constantly  on  the  look-out  for 
other  women,  but  she  clings  steadfastly  to  the  one  man.'' 

In  opposition  to  this  Lombroso  may  be  quoted  :  "It 
is  quite  certain  that  when  another  relationship  offers 
her  greater  practical  advantages  she  will  in  the  cruellest 
way  leave  her  first  love,  and  often  without  the  least 
remorse";  and  Laura  Marholm  records  the  opinion 
that  "Woman  likes  change  and  variety;  man  thrives  in 
that  monotony  which  drives  a  woman  to  desperation." 
All  these  opinions  are  merely  paraphrases  of  the  phrase, 
"  Lrt  donna  e  mobile  " — the  best-known  formula  for 
all  the  innumerable  complaints  about  the  fickleness  and 
inconstancy  of  woman. 

Contrary  to  the  accepted  opinion  that  female  love 
consists  in  complete  self-sacrifice  ("  a  man's  love  is 
characterised  by  self-interest,  a  woman's  by  self- 
surrender  "),  M.  de  Lambert  declares  that  "  women  play 
with  love, — they  give  themselves  up  to  it,  but  they  do 
not  give  way  to  it."  Friedrich  Nietzsche  has  thus 
formulated  the  difference  between  the  sexes  in  th^ir 
attitude  towards  love :  "A  woman  grows  pale  at  the 
idea  that  the  object  of  her  affection  might  not  be  worthy 
of  her,  a  man  grows  pale  at  the  idea  that  he  may  not 
be  worthy  of  the  woman  he  loves."  Goethe  wrote  to 
Frau  von  Stein  :    "I  would  I  might  be  tried  in  triple 


6  A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

fire  so  that  I  might  prove  worthy  of  your  love." 
Mantegazza,  however,  drawing  up  a  list  of  psychological 
sex  peculiarities  makes  the  man  ask  exactly  the  opposite 
question  :  "  Is  she  worthy  of  me,  can  she  satisfy  me?  " 
while  the  woman  asks :  "  Am  I  worthy  of  him,  can  I 
satisfy  him?  " 

It  would  not  be  difficult  to  multiply  these  examples 
ad  infinitum.  We  may  add  to  them  those  that  deny 
any  psychical  difference  between  the  sexes,  for  instance, 
Broca :  "  Men  and  women,  if  left  entirely  to  their  own 
inward  tendencies,  would  grow  to  resemble  one  another 
very  closely,  as  indeed  they  do  when  in  the  savage 
state."  It  was  Montaigne's  opinion  that  men  and 
women  were  very  like  one  another  in  character;  that 
"apart  from  institutions  and  customs,"  he  says,  "the 
difference  between  them  was  not  great."  Then  we  have 
Grillparzer's  phrase,  "  The  noble  woman  is  half,  in  fact, 
wholly  masculine  ";  and  Brissac's  "  Souls  have  no  sex  "; 
and  Swift's  "  I  do  not  know  any  amiable  quality  of 
women  which  would  not  be  equally  amiable  in  a  man. 
I  will  not  even  except  modesty  and  gentleness;  neither 
do  I  know  any  vice  or  folly  which  would  not  be  equally 
abhorrent  in  either  sex."  Lombroso,  on  the  contrary, 
considers  every  approximation  of  the  female  to  the  male 
type — in  spite  of  his  previously  expressed  opinion  that 
pleasant  women  are  often  of  a  masculine  type! — as  a 
sign  of  atavism;  "before  everything  else  we  seek  in 
women  for  specifically  feminine  qualities,  when  we  find 
the  opposite  we  consider  it  as  a  great  anomaly." 

What,  then,  are  we  to  think  of  a  subject  upon  which 
every  one  has  a  different  opinion,  which  is  considered 
by  some  as  unimportant  and  subsidiary,  by  others  as 
one   of   the  weightiest  of   normal   criteria?     After  so 


Outlines  7 

many  paradoxical  expressions  and  contrary  opinions, 
should  we  not  be  finally  justified  in  believing  that  one 
and  all  are  merely  the  result  of  subjective  tastes  and 
conventional  prejudices  ? 

One  good  result  of  the  woman's  movement  is  that 
it  has  given  an  impulse  to  a  critical  examination  of  the 
whole  question.  As  late  as  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth 
century  a  brilliant  and  subtle  thinker  like  Ludwig 
Feuerbach  dismissed  the  problem  with  the  inane  defini- 
tion :  "  The  essential  quality  of  a  man  is  manliness, 
of  a  woman,  womanliness.  ...  In  what  lie  the  virtue  ( 
and  efficiency  of  male  humanity.''  In  Manliness.  Of 
female  humanity .''  In  Womanliness.  The  efficiency 
and  health  of  humanity  consist  solely  in  this,  that  the 
female  part  should  be  as  a  woman  ought  to  be  and 
the  male  as  a  man  ought  to  be." 

In  the  present  day  the  most  superficial  thinker  would 
scorn  to  remain  content  with  such  utterances.  Still,  we 
cannot  assume  that  the  prevailing  battle  of  opinions  has 
as  yet  brought  about  a  greater  clearness  and  definiteness. 
The  woman's  movement,  in  order  to  be  consistent, 
must  regard  these  definitions  of  womanliness  from  a 
sceptical  or  even  from  a  negative  standpoint.  It  doubts 
or  denies  the  value  of  these  definitions,  and  in  their 
place  sets  up  unlimited  freedom  for  individual  develop- 
ment. It  lays  its  entire  stress  on  the  spheres  that  are 
common  to  women  and  men  and  demands  an  inde- 
pendent consideration  of  each  case  regardless  of  normal 
sex  peculiarities. 

Perhaps  this  is  the  only  rightful  standpoint  to  hold 
with  respect  to  the  separate  individual  who  comes  into 
the  world  as  a  being  with  characteristics  that  cannot  be 
altered.      It  is  probably  the  only  standpoint  that  can 


8  A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

be  maintained  without  depending  on  arbitrary  supposi- 
tions. And  if  Heine  is  right  in  assuming  that  a  desire 
for  freedom  is  characteristic  of  the  female  sex,  then  the 
woman's  movement  may  be  regarded  as  genuinely 
female. 

The  problem  of  sex  psychology  will  not,  however, 
be  solved  by  these  means.  It  may  merely  be  avoided. 
Those  who  make  themselves  independent  of  the  normal 
conditions  of  womanhood  do  not  thereby  annul  them. 
Although  the  limitations  may  be  altered  and  the  ideals 
may  be  changed,  they  still  remain  an  important  part  of 
the  mental  life  of  mankind,  they  are  the  product  of  long 
evolution  and  of  a  culture  that  must  not  be  under- 
valued. 

This  does  not,  however,  imply  that  one  must  acknow- 
ledge its  conventional  value.  There  is  always  a  danger 
in  recognising  conventional  valuations,  as  has  been 
lately  revealed  in  the  tendency  to  acknowledge  a  funda- 
mental difference  between  the  sexes,  and  to  establish 
maternity  as  the  determinative  factor  which  is  to  limit 
woman's  position  in  the  sphere  of  future  civilisation. 
Maternity  may  weigh  as  a  heavy  incumbrance  upon 
women  in  the  matter  of  their  outward  equality  with 
man,  but  as  regards  their  mental  equality  this  generalisa- 
tion is  as  little  of  a  universal  criterion  as  any  other. 

If  we  endeavour  to  obtain  a  concrete  conception  of 
what  is  meant  by  femininity  we  find  three  methods 
possible.  We  may  assume  the  average  woman  to  be 
the  norm,  or  we  may  construct  an  ideal  by  taking 
physical  qualities  as  parallels  and  analogues  of  the 
psychical,  classing  activity  and  passivity,  productivity 
and  receptivity  as  opposite  types;  or  we  may  draw  con- 
clusions   respecting    psychical    qualities    from    physio- 


Outlines  9 

logical  attributes  with  which  they  must  necessarily  be 
connected. 

By  each  of  these  methods  a  fictitious  type  is  created 
and  each  of  the  sexes  divided  into  two  groups — a  very 
large  one  consisting  of  the  so-called  normal  and  a  very 
small  one  of  the  so-called  abnormal  individuals.  But 
from  the  above  quoted  passages  it  may  be  seen  that  as 
regards  womanliness  the  results  of  these  three  methods 
do  not  agree.  Examples  which,  judged  according  to 
one  method,  would  be  characterised  as  abnormal  would, 
under  the  others,  be  classified  as  normal,  and  'vice  versa. 

The  method  of  averages  seems  to  be  quite  inadequate. 
Apart  from  Philistine  narrowness  and  subjective 
prejudices,  sex-psychology  does  not  concern  itself  with 
merely  pointing  out  the  well-known  and  ordinary  signs 
from  which  general  principles  may  be  deduced.  It 
attempts  to  discover  some  natural  principle  which  is 
common  to  all  females — that  is  to  say  to  all  complete 
females — in  all  periods  and  in  all  races.  Such  a  prin- 
ciple would  be  most  clearly  recognisable  in  the  females 
of  animals  other  than  human,  because  in  them  the 
despotism  of  human  consciousness  has  not  yet 
disturbed  the  incommunicable  quality  resident  in 
natural  manifestations. 

Still  less  effective  is  the  second  method — that  of 
judging  the  individual  according  to  an  ideal  standard. 
Here  we  are  confronted  with  two  separate  questions : 
firstly,  what  ought  a  woman  to  be.''  secondly,  what,  by 
virtue  of  her  own  nature,  a  woman  actually  is.  At 
best,  the  idealisation  could  but  furnish  a  criterion  by 
which  the  worth  of  an  individual  woman  could  be 
estimated  from  an  ethical  and  social  standpoint;  the 
question  as  to  how  far  the  differentiation  between  oppo- 


lo  A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

site  extremes  might  be  desirable  would  remain  un- 
answered. We  must  turn  to  the  third  method  if  we 
wish  to  undertake  an  enquiry  which  shall  be  free  from 
arbitrary  assumptions  and  prejudices. 


II 

According  to  the  fundamental  hypotheses  of  modern 
natural  science,  every  indication  of  consciousness  is 
connected  with  some  bodily  manifestation.  It  would 
seem  then  that  an  actual  psychic  difference  between  the 
sexes  must  be  unconditionally  affirmed.  If  the  physical 
difference  is  so  thorough  that  it  is  discernible  even  in 
the  hair,  and  "  a  man  is  a  man  even  to  his  thumbs,  and 
a  woman  is  a  woman  down  to  her  little  toes  "  (Ellis), 
is  it  not  clear  in  advance  that  the  female  body  must 
carry  a  soul  quite  different  from  that  of  the  male  body } 

Ancient  physiology  has  recorded  the  observation : 
Totus  homo  semen  est;  modern  physiology  bears 
this  out.  "  Woman  is  woman  only  through  her  genital 
glands :  all  the  peculiarities  of  her  body  and  mind,  of 
her  nutrition  and  nervous  activity,  the  tender  delicacy 
and  roundness  of  the  limbs,  with  the  peculiar  enlarge- 
ment of  the  pelvis,  the  development  of  the  breasts  when 
the  voice  has  attained  its  fulness,  the  beautiful  head  of 
hair,  together  with  the  scarce  perceptible  down  on  the 
rest  of  the  skin,  and  then,  in  addition  to  all  this,  the 
depth  of  feeling,  truth  of  intuition,  gentleness,  devotion 
and  faithfulness — in  short,  everything  which  we  admire 
and  honour  in  woman  as  truly  womanly,  is  merely  a 
dependence  of  the  ovary."  (Virchow,  Das  JVeih  und 
die  Zelle.) 

In   this   utterance  of   the   great   pathologist  one    is 


OutHnes  1 1 

struck  by  the  sudden  jump  from  the  enumeration  of 
so-called  secondary  sexual  character  to  psychic  qualities, 
the  connection  of  which  with  sexual  differences  is  so  little 
evinced  that  other  observers  cite  quite  contrary  attributes 
as  typically  feminine.  Indeed,  the  "  true  woman  "  of 
Virchow,  even  in  respect  of  secondary  character — under 
which  we  understand  recognisable  physical  peculiarities 
which  accompany  the  sex,  such  as  the  cock's  comb,  the 
stag's  antlers,  the  man's  beard — does  not  agree  with 
ethnographic  facts  or  even  with  the  varying  taste  of 
civilised  nations.  Thus  the  men  of  civilised  races  have 
a  wider,  therefore  a  more  feminine,  pelvis  than  the 
women  of  more  savage  stock,  while  the  men  of  such 
stock  share  the  "  beautiful  head  of  hair  "  with  civilised 
women;  the  tendency  to  grow  hair  on  the  upper  lip 
is  recognised  as  a  race-mark  of  Portuguese,  Spanish  and 
Hungarian  women;  and  as  for  the  rounding  of  the  limbs 
and  the  development  of  the  breasts,  the  newest  fashion- 
able ideal  of  the  female  figure,  which  has  been  called 
the  "  animated  skeleton,"  differs  considerably  from 
the  Virchow  ideal.  Whether  this  fashion  be  a  perver- 
sion or  no,  does  not  come  into  consideration,  but  solely 
the  fact  that  the  constitution  of  many  women  corre- 
sponds with  this  ideal.  The  mere  variability  of  taste, 
through  which  a  definite  variation  is  exalted  to  a  ruling 
type,  should  warn  us  to  hesitate  in  accepting  any  concep- 
tion of  the  "  true  woman." 

In  more  recent  times  there  have  been  extensive 
investigations  on  the  subject  of  the  physiological 
peculiarities  which  in  general  constitutionally  distinguish 
woman  from  man.  As  the  best  known  works  of  this 
sort  might  be  mentioned  Woman  as  a  Criminal  and 
Prostitute,  by  Lombroso  and  Ferrero,  and   Man  and 


12  A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

Woman,  by  Havelock  Ellis.  The  Englishman's  book, 
which  is  preferable  to  the  much-contested  work  of  the 
Italian  authors,  because  of  its  systematic  arrangement 
and  critical  method,  contains  a  conscientious  and  pene- 
trating; comparison  of  all  the  exact  scientific  results  in 
this  direction.  Everything  in  the  human  organism  that 
can  be  measured  and  weighed  is  here  carefully  considered 
in  relation  to  its  psycho-sexual  importance.  Yet  the 
author  is  obliged  to  confess  at  the  end  of  his  work  : 
"  We  have  not  succeeded  in  determining  the  radical  and 
essential  characters  of  men  and  women  uninfluenced  by 
external  modifying  conditions.  ...  By  showing  us 
that  under  varying  conditions  men  and  women  are, 
within  certain  limits,  indefinitely  modifiable,  a  precise 
knowled2:e  of  the  actual  facts  of  the  life  of  men  and 
women  forbids  us  to  dogmatise  rigidly  concerning  their 
respective  spheres.  It  is  a  matter  which  experience  alone 
can  demonstrate  in  detail.  .  .  .  And  so  many  of  the 
facts  are  modifiable  under  a  changing  environment  that 
in  the  absence  of  experience  we  cannot  pronounce 
definitely  regarding  the  behaviour  of  either  the  male 
or  female  organism  under  different  conditions." 

As  these  investigations  are  only  concerned  with 
establishing  facts  such  as  are  to  be  obtained  by  means 
of  scientific  methods  of  observation  and  statistical 
calculations,  it  is  clear  that  in  this  way  one  stops  short 
at  the  symptoms  without  being  able  to  penetrate  to  their 
source.  Biogenetical  research  dives  deeper  into  the 
nature  of  sexual  differentiation. 

The  physiological  functions  of  nutrition  and  propaga- 
tion evidence  even  in  the  most  primitive  organisms 
two  tendencies  of  vital  activity,  one  inwardly  accumula- 
tive,   and    the    other    outwardly    distributive.      These 


Outlines  1 3 

original  tendencies  express  the  peculiarities  of  the  male 
and  female  germ  cells;  and  the  preponderance  of  one 
of  these  tendencies  determines  in  the  embryo  a  prodigal 
or  a  thrifty  constitution,  a  masculine  or  a  feminine 
polarisation.  The  masculine  polarisation  gives,  as  the 
properties  of  the  germ-cell  show,  mobility,  energy, 
initiative,  the  inclination  to  sweep  afar  and  the  ability 
to  assert  oneself  under  unfavourable  conditions.  The 
feminine  postulates  stability,  passive  self-dependence,  an 
inclination  to  be  firm  and  shut  off  from  outside  influ- 
ences (see  Feuillet,  The  Psychology  of  the  Sexes  and 
its  Biological  Foundation).  If  we  pursue  these  deduc- 
tions further,  then  we  may  say  that  the  choleric-sanguine 
temperament  presents  itself  as  the  masculine,  the 
phlegmatic-lymphatic  as  the  feminine  temperament;  the 
male  sex  embodies  the  progressive  or  centrifugal 
element  that  renews  and  transforms  the  species,  the 
female  sex  the  conservative  or  centripetal,  that  maintains 
and  preserves  the  species  unchanged. 

Here  we  seem  to  have  a  firm  foundation  for  what 
may  be  considered  as  psychic  sex-characteristics,  and 
taken  for  granted  in  all  sexually  differentiated  in- 
dividuals. But  in  reality  we  have  only  created 
a  type  from  which  every  individual  differs  more 
or  less.  The  most  superficial  observation  will 
show  that  these  general  definitions  are  not  even 
true  of  persons  who  in  no  particular  are  extra- 
ordinary, that  in  many  cases  the  individual  differences 
contradict  the  general  difference.  Thus  it  is  not  difficult 
to  find  individuals  whose  psychic-sexual  characteristics 
are  reversed,  although  physically  they  may  be  normal 
representatives  of  their  sex.  But  here  lies  the  real 
problem :  If  the  germ-cell  presents  the  only  and  exclu- 


14  A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

sive  principle  of  the  constitution  of  the  organism,  how 
are  such  deviations  possible?  and  if  the  physical  sex- 
difference  does  not  necessarily  determine  the  spiritual 
character  of  the  individual,  what  factors  are  the  cause 
of  these  deviations  ? 

But  apart  from  untypical  individuals,  these  generali- 
sations from  biological  facts  leave  unexplained  a  whole 
row  of  phenomena  that  concerns  natural  lines  of 
development.  There  are  many  breeds  of  animals,  among 
them  some  of  the  higher  kinds,  whose  somatic  character, 
outside  the  actual  sphere  of  sex,  seems  to  be  quite  inde- 
pendent of  the  nature  of  the  germ-cells.  Mare  and 
stallion,  dog  and  bitch,  for  example,  among  which  one 
can  scarcely  find  secondary  sexual  characteristics,  do 
not  differ  intellectually  according  to  their  sex.  Thus 
race-horses  and  hunting  hounds  are  used  without 
regard  to  sex.  With  these  the  mobility,  energy,  and 
initiative  which  are  supposed  to  belong  exclusively  to 
the  masculine  germ-cell,  are  distributed  equally  between 
both  sexes.  Indeed,  the  bees  show  us  that  a  reversal 
of  the  sex  characteristics  may  become  the  rule.  In  the 
community  of  the  bee  the  social  life  of  the  sexes  is  in 
direct  contradiction  to  the  character  which  the  germ- 
cell  is  supposed  to  have  given  them.  The  male  drone 
distinguishes  himself  by  his  fondness  for  a  lazy,  retired 
existence  from  the  active,  busy,  and  adventurous  female 
worker  bee. 

The  explanation  of  this  may,  of  course,  be  found  in 
the  nature  of  the  germ-cells  themselves.  According  to 
recent  investigations  into  the  self-contained  capacity  of 
these  for  sex  differentiation,  it  is  highly  probable  that 
the  female  germ-cell  has  in  its  own  constitution  a 
masculine  polarisation,    that   is  to  say,   it   decides  the 


Outlines  1 5 

generation  of  a  male  organism;  the  male  germ-cell  on 
the  contrary,  a  feminine  polarisation,  that  is  to  say,  it 
decides  the  generation  of  a  female  organism.  Observa- 
tion of  the  very  peculiar  conditions  of  propagation 
obtaining  among  the  bees  shows  that  the  unfertilised 
eggs  exclusively  produce  drones,  that  is,  males;  but  that 
the  female  bees — who  may  become  workers  or  queens 
according  to  the  nature  of  their  food — can  only  be 
produced  with  the  co-operation  of  the  masculine  genera- 
tive matter  (see  Janke,  T>ie  willkurliche  Hervorhring- 
ung  des  Geschlechtes)  {The  Voluntary  Determination 
of  Sex). 

If,  then,  the  female  organism  begets  masculine  germs, 
the  male  organism  feminine  germs,  why  should  not  this 
capacity  also  express  itself  in  the  character  of  the  soul 
of  which  it  is  the  vehicle?  Moreover,  Lourbet  (The 
Problem  of  the  Sexes)  has  pointed  out  that  the  char- 
acteristic signs  of  the  female  "  psyche  "  could  have  been 
deduced  from  the  qualities  of  the  masculine  germ-cell : 
"  for  woman  is  livelier  and  quicker  of  thought  than 
man,  unstable,  nervous  and  incapable  of  anything  which 
requires  perseverance  and  endurance."  Thus  the 
tendency  of  the  masculine  germ-cell  to  a  complete 
abnegation  of  its  own  being  and  fusion  with  a  larger, 
self-contained  organism  like  the  ovulum,  may  be  pointed 
to  as  a  sign  of  that  inclination  to  surrender  and  self- 
sacrifice  which  has  always  been  considered  a  particular 
distinguishing  feature  of  the  female  nature. 

No  sure  foundation  for  a  psychological  formula  of 
Femininity  is  to  be  found  here.  On  a  closer  examina- 
tion we  find  little  more  than  arbitrary  suppositions  in 
which  everything  points  in  a  direction  agreeable  to  the 
writer,    especially    with    reference    to    the    type    which 


1 6  A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

experience  has  rendered  familiar,  or  to  which  the 
prevalent  views  incline  him. 

While  we  are  trying  to  explain  masculinity  and 
femininity  in  their  contemporary  aspects  by  means  of 
original  and  primitive  organic  conditions,  we  are  liable 
to  overlook  the  fact  that  in  many  essential  respects  they 
are  products  of  civilisation,  and  in  no  sense  permanent, 
conclusive,  or  generally  significant.  Among  most 
savage  peoples  the  division  of  labour  between  man  and 
woman  is  quite  different  from  that  among  civilised 
nations.  Nearly  everywhere  it  is  the  women  who  are 
the  first  burden-bearers,  the  first  tillers  of  the  soil,  the 
first  builders  and  the  first  potters — if,  indeed,  the  whole 
industrial  part  of  primitive  life,  together  with  the  first 
inventions  belonging  thereto,  may  not  be  said  to  be  the 
work  of  the  female  sex  (see  Ellis,  Man  and  JVoman). 
Presumably  the  physiological  observation  of  these 
primitive  women  would  yield  results  in  many  respects 
differing  from  those  of  civilised  women. 

But  if  we  limit  ourselves  to  psycho-sexual  phenomena 
within  the  limits  of  European  civilisation,  we  must  bear 
in  mind  one  fact  of  the  utmost  importance  in  many 
ways,  namely,  the  relatively  greater  degree  of  individual 
differentiation. 

It  is  a  distinguishing  peculiarity  of  man  that  his  sexual 
bent  varies  according  to  the  individual  and  is  not 
uniform,  as  among  the  animals.  The  degree  of  mascu- 
linity or  femininity  of  a  lion,  a  horse  or  a  hare  is 
determined  by  its  breed.  Taken  by  herself,  a  lioness 
is  a  more  masculine  animal  than  a  roebuck,  inasmuch 
as  it  is  generally  accepted  that  aggressive  impulse 
is  a  sign  of  masculinity.  But  among  the  highest 
mammals    one    begins   to   notice    signs    of   individual 


Outlines  i  -j 

differentiation;  and  among  human  races  it  is  only  among 
the  most  primitive  that  the  sexes  are  divided  into 
comparatively  homogeneous  groups. 

With  the  increase  of  civilisation,  under  favourable 
conditions  and  in  freer  social  circumstances,  the  human 
unit  begins  to  expand  individually — perhaps  because 
under  conditions  of  assured  safety  the  sway  of  society 
lessens,  and  the  pressure  which  it  exerts  upon  its  mem- 
bers no  longer  indicates  the  necessity  of  self-preserva- 
tion, and  therefore  is  no  longer  regarded  as  inviolable. 
This  may  be  so  because  the  adaptation  to  the  conditions 
of  sexual  selection,  which  made  primitive  woman  the 
involuntary  object  of  robbery  or  purchase,  has  itself 
altered  with  the  conditions.  The  fulness  and  freedom 
of  the  development  of  outward  things  proceeds  parallel 
with  the  fulness  and  development  of  inward  things. 
Nature  herself,  an  eternal  progression  from  simple  and 
primitive  forms  to  forms  ever  more  complicated  and 
more  perfect,  from  the  uniform  to  the  multiform,  evi- 
dences itself  in  the  human  race  as  a  progression  from 
the  typical  to  the  individual. 

Qualities  which,  looked  at  individually  and  alone, 
might  appertain  as  much  to  one  sex  as  to  the  other, 
create  in  their  combinations  the  individualised  per- 
sonality. The  extraordinary  diversity  of  these  com- 
binations in  itself  constitutes  an  objection  to  considering 
personality  merely  as  a  reflection  of  sex,  and  to  regard- 
ing man  and  woman  in  their  spiritual  characters  merely 
as  paraphrases  of  their  sexual  machinery.  Is  it  really 
possible  by  means  of  such  simple  things  as  the  formation 
of  the  germ-cells  or  the  processes  of  nutrition  and 
assimilation  to  explain  the  conscious  powers  of  an 
organism  so  complicated  as  that  of  man } 

C 


1 8  A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 


III 

All  methods  yield  only  percentages,  and  divide  the 
sexes  into  majorities  and  minorities.  Thus,  almost 
without  exception,  all  weight  is  given  to  the  character 
of  the  majorities.  And  yet  minorities  are  by  no  means 
unimportant  or  superfluous  in  the  social  scheme,  and 
they  are  responsible  for  many  changes  and  developments 
of  civilised  society. 

But  let  us  leave  that  matter  on  one  side  for  the 
'moment.  Let  us  first  investigate  the  fact  that  the 
psychic  character  of  single  individuals — irrespective  of 
the  fact  whether  these  be  rare  or  frequent — does  not 
correspond  with  their  sexual  type. 

Lombroso  has  put  forward  the  law  of  crossed  trans- 
mission in  explanation  of  untypical  femininity.  "  Such 
women  are  perhaps  the  product  of  a  peculiar  mechanism 
of  heredity;  they  seem  to  have  derived  their  sexual 
organs  and  secondary  sexual  characteristics  from  the 
mother  and  their  brains  from  the  father;  paradoxical 
mixtures  of  this  sort  likewise  postulate  the  type  of  the 
effeminate  man."  He  is  also  of  the  opinion  that,  inas- 
much as  the  female  sex  is  the  less  variable,  only  the 
domain  of  normality  or  extreme  anomaly  seems  repre- 
sented by  it,  and  that  the  innumerable  transitional  forms 
which  unite  these  two  poles  are  wanting.  This  is  one 
of  many  arbitrary  and  unproved  assertions  which  show 
how  purely  subjective  is  the  standpoint  of  Lombroso. 
The  crossed  transmission  from  which  such  "  paradoxical 
mixtures "  derive,  belongs  to  the  fundamental  laws 
which,  according  to  the  Darwinian  Theory,  determine 
the  character  of  the  species.      We  know  that  the  law  of 


Outlines  1 9 

the  direct  transmission  of  secondary  sexual  character- 
istics and  sexual  organs  from  the  male  organism  to  the 
male  offspring  and  from  the  female  organism  to  the 
female  offspring,  is  limited  and  partly  suspended  by  the 
law  of  mixed  or  amphigonous  hereditary  transmission. 
"This  law  declares  that  every  individual  organism 
generated  by  sexual  means  derives  peculiarities  from 
both  parents."    (Haeckel,  Natural  History  of  Creation.) 

It  is  frequently  observed  that  daughters  more  fre- 
quently resemble  their  father,  sons  more  frequently  their 
mother.  In  all  probability  a  father  might  sooner  expect 
to  find  his  own  peculiarities  in  his  daughters  than  in 
his  sons.  On  this  fact — which  contains  an  illustration 
of  the  capacity  of  the  germ-cell  to  produce  its  sexual 
opposite — Janke  has  founded  a  scheme  of  heredity  by 
which  the  true  heir  and  copy  of  the  father  is  the  daugh- 
ter's son,  while  a  woman  lives  on  in  her  son's  daughters. 
The  true  male  descent  of  a  family  thus  does  not,  as  at 
present  accepted,  proceed  from  father  to  son,  but  in  a 
cross  line  from  father  to  daughter  and  daughter  to 
grandson. 

Schopenhauer,  too,  in  his  analysis  of  existence,  has 
deduced  a  theory  according  to  which  will  is  the  primary 
and  intellect  the  secondary  principle,  and  postulates  a 
sort  of  crossed  transmission  in  which  he  makes  the  male 
sex,  as  primary,  the  hereditary  bearer  of  character,  the 
female,  as  the  secondary,  the  bearer  of  hereditary  intel- 
lectual endowment.  In  his  Republic  he  emphasises  the 
fact  that  in  order  to  ensure  the  raising  of  a  posterity  as 
sound  as  possible,  the  men  of  strongest  character  must 
be  united  to  the  most  intelligent  women.  Incidentally, 
this  theory  of  Schopenhauer's  is  an  example  of  how  little 
a  preconceived  opinion  is  to  be  shaken  by  the  results  of 

c  2 


20  A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

observation;  for  the  instances  in  which  character  and 
intellect  are  not  transmitted  at  all  in  the  given  manner 
are  so  numerous  and  conspicuous  that  Schopenhauer 
himself  would  have  been  unable  to  overlook,  them — if 
he  had  not  had  his  little  theory! 

The  fact  of  crossed  transmission  already  makes  it 
evident  that  the  single  individual  unites  in  himself  mas- 
culine and  feminine  qualities,  and  cannot,  even  in  the 
lowest  degree  of  development,  be  considered  as  a 
"  homologous  sexual  being."  One  might,  indeed, 
found  on  this  a  conception  that  each  individual  presents  a 
mixture,  that  absolute  masculinity  and  femininity  never 
occur.  By  the  adoption  of  a  principal  of  sex  gradation 
individual  deviations  from  the  general  type  could  then 
be  explained. 

But  the  theory  of  sex  gradation,  however  alluring  in 
itself,  does  not  offer  a  good  starting  point  for  that 
which  really  lies  beyond  the  primary  sphere  of  sex,  or 
derivative  interpretations — that  is  to  say,  the  real  mean- 
ing of  what  is  masculine  and  what  feminine.  As  such  a 
starting  point  is  not  to  be  arrived  at  by  physiological- 
biological  methods,  we  must  either  begin  with  the 
results  of  averages,  which  are  a  sum  of  superficial 
observations,  or  commit  what  the  philosophers  call  a 
petitio  principii  and  start  with  an  ideal.  For  it  is  only 
arbitrary  supposition  to  call  all  positive  qualities  mascu- 
line and  all  negative  qualities  feminine,  since  experience 
shews  them  to  be  common  in  both  sexes. 

It  was  Schopenhauer  who  pointed  out  the  different 
degrees  in  the  sexual  character  of  individuals,  and  made 
use  of  this  gradual  differentiation  of  sex  in  explanation 
of  the  phenomena  of  love.  In  his  Metaphysics  of 
Lovey  he  says,  "All  sex  is  one-sidedness.     This  one- 


Outlines  2 1 

sidedness  is  expressed  more  decidedly  in  one  individual 
than  in  another,  and  may  therefore  be  complemented  and 
neutralised  by  one  individual  rather  than  by  another. 
.  .  .  The  physiologists  know  that  manhood  and  woman- 
hood allow  of  countless  differences  of  degree,  by  means 
of  which  the  one  sinks  to  the  level  of  some  repugnant 
Gynander  and  Hypospadiaens,  and  the  other  is  elevated 
into  some  charming  Androgyne.  Both  sides  may  reach 
a  perfect  Hermaphroditism,  where  stand  those  indi- 
viduals who,  halting  midway  between  the  sexes,  belong 
to  neither,  and  are  therefore  useless  for  propagation." 

Schopenhauer  was  content  with  describing  sex  grada- 
tion as  a  physiological  phenomenon;  he  did  not  take 
into  consideration  the  fact  that  physiological  sexual 
constitution  can  be  no  criterion  of  psychic  character, 
because  individuals  who  physically  represent  very  pro- 
nounced sexual  types  are  often  psychically  quite  un- 
typical and  fail  to  correspond  at  all  with  their  physique. 

Otto  Weininger,  in  his  book,  ^ex  and  Character^ 
has  sought  much  deeper  in  his  efforts  to  grasp  the 
problem  of  sex  gradation.  He  starts  with  the  assump- 
tion that  every  cell  of  the  organism  possesses  a  sex 
character  or  a  decided  sexual  accentuation.  It  is  true  he 
is  obliged  to  confess  "  in  what  the  masculinity  (Mas- 
kulitat)  or  the  femininity  (Muliebritat)  of  a  cell  may 
actually  consist,  ...  it  is  impossible  at  present  to  state 
definitely  or  with  any  degree  of  probability."  He  traces 
the  sexual  character  of  each  cell  to  a  modification  of  that 
hypothetical  Idioplasma  which  gives  to  every  tissue  the 
specific  character  of  the  species.  He  divides  this  Idio- 
plasma into  "  Arrhenoplasma,"  bearer  of  the  masculine, 
and  "  Thelyplasma,"  bearer  of  the  feminine  principal. 
In  every  actual  individual  these  two  plasms  are  united 


22  A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

in  2:reater  or  lesser  proportions  :  "  An  individual  A  or 
B  should  therefore  no  longer  be  described  as  simply 
*  Man  '  or  '  Woman,'  but  each  according  to  the  fractions 
which  they  may  possess  of  each  other.  This  limits  the 
supposed  exclusive  importance  of  the  external  sexual 
parts,  "  by  which  alone  the  sex  of  man  and,  to  some 
degree,  his  destiny  (not  seldom  unjustifiably,  as  will  be 
shown),  is  in  consequence  decided." 

In  order  to  complete  the  original  sex  traits  already 
qualified  by  the  proportions  of  Arrheno  and  Thely- 
plasma,  Weininger  assumes — as  others  have  done  before 
him — an  inner  secretion  of  the  germinal-glands,  by 
means  of  which  the  sex  of  the  individual  is  finally  com- 
pleted, so  that  sexual  differentiation  might  also  be 
explained  as  a  chemical  phenomenon. 

The  significance  of  Weininger's  hypothesis  lies  prin- 
cipally in  the  endeavour  to  create  a  biological  Formula 
for  the  infinite  many-sidedness  of  individual  develop- 
ment, and  thus  avoid  the  false  inferences  which  arise 
from  the  dependence  upon  general  types.  The  designa- 
tions Arrheno  and  Thelyplasma  do  not,  to  be  sure, 
decide  the  essence  of  masculine  and  feminine;  for 
as  both  appear  in  either  sex,  only  in  varying  proportions, 
one  is  unable  to  perceive  in  this  the  constituent  principle 
of  sex  differentiation.  Weininger  assumes  a  hypo- 
thetical division  of  the  protoplasm,  and  thus  helps  him- 
self over  the  difficulty  in  the  same  way  as  the  physio- 
logists who  explain  the  phenomenon  of  consciousness 
by  ascribing  it  to  the  protoplasm.  In  both  cases  the 
problem  is  not  solved;  it  is  merely  pushed  one  step 
farther  in  advance. 

As  soon  as  Weininger  gives  up  the  biologico-psycho- 
logical  method  of  consideration  which  he  pursues  in  the 


Outlines 


23 


first  part  of  his  work,  and  takes  up  the  psychologic- 
philosophical,  he  finds  himself  compelled,  since  no  cri- 
terion can  be  obtained  from  his  hypothesis,  to  make 
use  of  the  general  type  in  order  to  give  the  first  applica- 
tion of  his  gradation  theory.     Indeed,  in  the  second  part 
he  completely  annuls  the  suppositions  of  the  first,   in 
order  to  introduce,  by  means  of  the  method  of  logical 
deduction,  unexceptionally  valid  criteria  for  man  and 
woman.      But    the   recognition    of   sex    gradation — by 
which  Weininger  understands,  not  a  graduated  approach 
to  physical  hermaphroditism,  but  degrees  of  constitu- 
tion outside  the  primary  sphere  of  sex — excludes  these 
unexceptionable  valid  criteria,  because  they  are  rooted 
in  the  conception  that  the  primary  division  of  the  sexes 
does  not  extend  to  the  complex  total  of  the  qualities  that 
are  united  in  an  individual  personality.     In   the  con- 
struction of  his  general  type — which  he  calls  a  "  platonic 
idea  " — Weininger  uses  as  a  standard  of  femininity  the 
"  most  trivial  experience  "  and   "  the  commonest  and 
most  superficial  things,"  while  for  masculinity  he  simply 
gathers  together  all  the  highest  mental  and  moral  attri- 
butes, thus  dividing  the  sexes  into  extreme  antitheses, 
he  comes  naturally  to  very  different  conclusions  than 
those  that  would  have  resulted  from  building  on  his 
theory  of  gradation.     He  goes  so  far  as  to  assert  that 
"  even  the  lowest  man  stands  infinitely  higher  than  the 
highest  woman,"  because  only  man  is  a  monad,  only  he 
has  a  soul;  woman,  on  the  contrary,  is  soulless,  possesses 
no  ego  and  no  individuality,  has  neither  personality  nor 
freedom,  neither  character  nor  will.     Indeed,  he  even 
declares  that  "  women  " — observe,  "  women,"  and  not 
a  mere  abstraction  of  woman — "  have  no  existence  and 
no  essence,  they  are  not — they  are  nothing." 


24  A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

According  to  the  postulates  of  the  original  biologico- 
psychological  observation,  it  would  at  least  have  been 
I  difficult  to  avoid  the  question  :  At  what  degree  of  mas- 
Iculinity  does  the  soul  begin?  For  if  man  alone 
possesses  a  soul  then  the  masculine  Idioplasm  or 
Arrhenoplasm  must  be  reckoned  as  the  physical  corre- 
lative of  the  soul,  and  must  to  a  certain  degree  be  found 
mixed  with  the  constitution  of  the  feminine  individual. 
\When  Weininger  denies  a  soul  to  even  the  most  mas- 
culine woman,  that  is  to  say,  the  woman  with  a  large 
proportion  of  Arrhenoplasm,  but  grants  it  to  the  most 
feminine  man,  he  fetters  the  soul  to  the  most  primary 
sexual  feature,  and  involuntarily  exalts  the  phallus  as 
the  vehicle  of  the  soul.j  By  the  roundabout  way  of  an 
apparently  very  pithy  "biological  theory,  and  with  ex- 
penditure of  an  enormous  amount  of  mental  labour, 
Weininger's  doctrine  of  gradation  arrives  at  the  ancient, 
clumsy,  psychologically  undifferentiated  view  which 
segregates  men  and  women  according  to  their  primary 
sexual  features  into  two  widely  separated  antitheses. 

In  this  insufficiency  of  principle  and  failure  of  the 
basic  problem,  Weininger's  work  shows  that  the  problem 
of  sexual  psychology  remains  insoluble  so  long  as  the 
sexual  antithesis  is  regarded  as  an  essential  separation 
and  a  radical  difference,  permeating  the  whole  constitu- 
tion as  well  as  the  psychic  personality. 

IV 

What  real  biological  necessity  is  there  for  the  separa- 
tion of  the  sexes  .'*  In  the  lowest  grades  of  life  they  are 
one.  The  protoplasm,  the  first  manifestation  of  or- 
ganic life,  shows  no  sign  of  an  elementary  separation, 
and  the  earliest  forms  of  animal  life  are  sexually  un- 


Outlines  25 

divided.  If  the  impulse  towards  separation  lay  in 
matter  itself,  there  could  be  no  sexless  living  object. 

The  separation  of  the  sexes  is  achieved  through 
certain  conditions  of  development  in  a  chain  of  the 
most  varied  and  fluctuating  forms.  In  his  Love-life  in 
"Nature^  William  Bolsche  gives  a  clear  picture  of  this 
process  of  development,  the  determining  causes  of  which 
are  to  be  found  in  that  hereditary  transmission  which 
plays  the  most  important  part  in  propagation.  In  so 
far  as  the  separation  of  the  sexes  serves  the  interests 
of  propagation,  so  far  does  it  determine  the  organisa- 
tion of  the  individual.  But  the  individual,  especially 
of  the  higher  species,  has  a  life  of  its  own  that  remains 
untouched  by  the  purposes  of  propagation.  Science 
is  unable  to  point  out  a  sexual  differentiation  in  the 
greater  number  of  the  organs  that  serve  this  life.  So 
far-reaching  a  differentiation,  considerably  overstepping 
her  purpose,  is  contrary  to  Nature's  economy.  So  that 
the  differences  which  sex  brings  with  it  must  be  held 
to  be  only  relative  and  unable  to  influence  the  constitu- 
tion sufficiently  to  alter  the  character  of  the  race.  For  if 
there  are  primitive  organisms  in  which  the  sexes  differ 
so  widely  that  male  and  female  appear  as  if  belonging 
to  different  species,  this  may  be  considered  as  one  of 
the  numberless  possibilities  to  which  sex  differentiation 
is  subject  in  adopting  itself  to  external  circumstances — 
one  of  those  possibilities  which  in  other  cases  are 
responsible  for  the  complete  sexual  similarity  of 
individuals  uniting  in  propagation,  as,  for  example, 
snails. 

Concerning  the  natural  purpose  of  sex-differentiation 
and  its  biological  significance,  Weismann  declares  :  "  Of 
an  equally  secondary  nature  with  the  differentiation  of 


26  A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

cells  into  masculine  and  feminine  reproductory  cells, 
is  that  of  personal  units  into  male  and  female;  and 
all  the  numberless  differences  in  form  and  function 
which  characterise  sex  among  the  higher  animals  .  .  . 
are  nothing  but  adaptations  in  order  to  produce  the 
mingling  of  the  hereditary  tendencies  of  two  indi- 
viduals." 

Individuals,  then,  will  differ  according  to  their  sex 
most  strongly  in  those  peculiarities  which  are  imme- 
diately connected  with  the  problem  of  propagation. 
These  peculiarities  may  be  described  as  a  teleological 
differentiation  of  sex.  If  we  take  into  account  the 
psychological  disposition  which  accompanies  human 
sexuality  as  a  parallel  phenomenon,  this  teleological 
differentiation  in  man  would  thus  be  found  in  all  those 
qualities  which  favour  sexual  conquest — in  the  aggres- 
sive temperament  which  predisposes  him  to  a  warlike, 
enterprising  and  violent  existence,  and  in  case  of  the 
woman,  in  the  weak-willed,  patient,  unenterprising 
nature  which  favours  passivity  and  makes  her  fitter  for 
the  conception,  bearing,  and  rearing  of  offspring.  We 
ought  to  mean  nothing  more  than  the  teleological  weak- 
ness of  woman  and  the  teleological  strength  of  man  when 
we  speak  of  specifically  feminine  and  specifically  mascu- 
line qualities.  They  comprise  the  suitability  of  the 
individual's  psychic  constitution  for  the  achievement  of 
his  duty  to  the  species. 

These  qualities  which  serve  solely  to  determine  the 
sex  of  the  individual  belong  to  the  domain  of  the  primi- 
tive sex-nature.  But  by  means  of  that  which,  ever 
since  there  has  been  a  spiritual  and  moral  development 
of  man,  has  been  understood  as  his  "  higher  nature,"  or 
even  through  individual  deviations  from  the  teleological 


Outlines 


27 


type,  the  psychic  constitution  encroaches  more  or  less 
on  this  domain.  The  relation  of  the  individual  to  the 
general  differentiation  and  its  independence  of  the 
primitive  sex-nature,  suggest  that  a  thorough  agree- 
ment of  all  organs  in  the  direction  of  sexual  polarity 
by  no  means  exists. 

Every  higher  animal  organism  is  a  compound  and 
complex  mechanism.  The  higher  its  place  in  the  scale 
of  development  the  more  complicated  its  formal  and 
functional  organisation.  The  explanation  of  the  fact 
that  sex  has  not  that  decisive  influence  over  the  whole 
of  the  organism  that  is  so  frequently  attributed  to  it, 
lies  possibly  in  the  physiological  conditions  of  its 
origin.  A  sketch  of  its  ontogenetic  history — in  approxi- 
mate outlines — will  make  that  clear. 

With  the  increasing  growth  of  the  fertilised  egg-cell 
three  layers  are  formed,  by  which  one  perceives  even 
at  this  stage  that  the  future  organs  have  their  origin  in 
separate  groups  of  cells.  Thus  out  of  the  outer  layer 
(ectoderm)  arise  the  nervous  system  and  spinal  cord, 
also  the  organs  of  sense  and  the  epidermis,  with  their 
respective  glands;  out  of  the  inner  layer  (entoderm)  the 
principal  organs  of  vegetative  glandular  activity,  the 
lungs,  liver,  pancreas,  kidneys,  etc.,  in  so  far  as  the 
groups  of  cells  that  serve  the  special  vegetative  processes 
are  concerned;  the  middle  layer  (mesoderm)  provides 
all  the  apparatus  for  movement  and  support  which  the 
organs  derived  from  the  other  layers  require  for  their 
growth,  also  the  organs  for  the  circulation  of  the  blood, 
and  for  movement — muscles,  bones,  cartilage,  and 
sinews.  The  mesoderm  is  at  the  same  time  the  layer 
out  of  which  the  sexual  organs  are  formed  (see  Ranke's 
Man). 


28  A  Survey  of  the  Wo?nan  Problem 

These  layers  represent  three  different  and  relatively 
independent  groups  of  cells;  and  the  human  organism 
that  is  produced  by  their  amalgamation  remains  to  the 
tenth  week  of  its  embryonic  existence  a  hermaphrodite 
creature,  which  does  not  acquire  sex,  that  is  the  potential 
capacity  to  reproduce,  until  the  most  important  organs 
for  its  own  personal  life  have  been  formed.  The  fact 
that  the  most  important  of  all,  the  brain  and  the  spinal 
cord,  possess  that  peculiar  autonomy  by  virtue  of  which 
the  whole  central  nervous  system  may,  in  a  certain  sense, 
be  termed  a  self-dependent  and  separate  organism  within 
our  organism  (Ranke),  might,  perhaps,  be  ascribed  to 
the  circumstance  that  it  arises  from  a  different  germ 
layer  from  the  organs  of  generation  and  attains  its  first 
development  at  a  time  when  the  latter  are  not  even  in 
existence. 

Concerning  the  causes  which  decide  the  sex  of  the 
embryo,  in  spite  of  numerous  hypotheses — at  the 
beginning  of  the  last  century  there  were  about  three 
hundred  of  them  and  modern  science  has  considerably 
increased  them — complete  ^uncertainty  prevails.  The 
assumption  that  the  sex  is  already  decided  in  procrea- 
tion is  opposed  by  the  assumption  that  it  is  determined 
in  the  course  of  embryonic  development,  and  principally 
through  the  influence  of  nutrition.  As  both  these 
hypotheses  are  confirmed  by  the  experiments  and  obser- 
vations of  their  supporters,  without  offering  any  reli- 
ability in  the  arbitrary  determination  of  sex,  it  is  not 
impossible  that  one  or  the  other  may  sometimes  be  the 
case.  Either  one  of  the  germ-cells  itself  decides  the 
sex  by  its  own  internal  tendency,  or  both  in  their  fusion 
are  neutralised,  in  which  case  the  sex  either  remains 
indeterminate,  as  in  hermaphrodites,  or  is  determined 


Outlines  29 

afterwards  by  other  influences  encountered  by  the  new 
organism  during  its  development.  In  the  latter  case 
especially  the  organs  that  derive  from  the  ectoderm  and 
entoderm  maintain  their  independence  of  the  subsequent 
sex  differentiation. 

For  a  long  time  the  decisive  factor  of  spiritual  sex 
difference  was  sought  in  the  brain,  and  it  was  believed 
that  many  signs  thereof  had  been  found.  But  to-day 
there  can  no  longer  be  any  doubt  that  the  human  brain 
exhibits  merely  individual  and  not  sexual  differences. 
After  many  futile  endeavours  to  recognise  sex  by  the 
weight  or  shape  of  the  brain,  modern  anatomy  has  given 
up  the  hope  of  contributing  any  documents  to  the 
problems  of  the  psychology  of  sex  by  this  means. 

Only  as  a  figure  of  speech  may  one  speak  of  a  "  mas- 
culine brain  " — say,  in  a  woman  whose  intelligence  is 
above  the  ordinary.  Physiologically,  this  expression  is 
as  meaningless  as  Ulrich's  well-known  formula  in  ex- 
planation of  the  phenomenon  of  contrary  sexual  emo- 
tion :  Anima  mulieris  in  corpore  virili  inclusa — at 
bottom  only  a  circumscription  of  the  fact  that  the  sexual 
feelings  of  the  female  may  be  united  with  an  externally 
complete  masculine  organism.  This  remarkable  abnor- 
mality, which  is  not  yet  clear  in  its  causes,  suggests  that 
not  only  the  brain  in  its  entirety,  but  the  cerebral  centre 
which  brings  the  sex  impulse  into  consciousness,  is  inde- 
pendent in  its  development  of  the  sexual  glands. 
Krafft-Ebing,  who,  in  other  matters  of  sexual  psycho- 
logy, assumes  entirely  the  conventional  point  of  view, 
says  in  this  connection  :  "  It  is  an  interesting  question, 
.  .  .  whether  the  psycho-sexual  development  is  deter- 
mined by  the  peripheral  influences  of  the  genital  glands 
or  by  central  cerebral  conditions,"  and  lays  stress  on 


3©  A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

the  fact  that  the  local  precedents  in  the  sexual  organs 
"  are  only  accessory  and  not  exclusive  factors  in  the 
growth  of  a  psycho-sexual  personality."  It  may  serve 
as  an  illustration  of  this,  that  the  castration  of  men  by 
no  means  achieves  the  thorough  change  in  sex  charac- 
teristics that  is  commonly  presupposed  (see  Mobius, 
Castration). 

If  the  origin  of  the  brain  in  a  particular  layer  is  not 
without  importance  for  the  individual  differentiation, 
the  role  of  the  mesoderm,  as  the  layer  immediately  con- 
cerned with  the  formation  of  sex,  seems  decisive  for  the 
sexual  typification  of  the  individual.  Inasmuch  as  it 
supplies  form,  carriage,  movement  and  connection  with 
the  rest  of  the  body  to  those  organs  whose  functional 
part  is  supplied  by  the  other  layers,  it  becomes  the 
"  principal  factor  in  the  building-up  of  the  whole  body." 
Out  of  this  relationship  of  the  generative  layer  to  the 
organs,  whose  form  it  influences  without  having  a  part 
in  their  specific  character,  the  difference  in  the  bodily 
appearance  of  the  sexes  is  explained.  The  general 
differences  between  the  sexes,  which  are  not  only  an 
essential  but  a  secondary  difference,  are  here  most 
pointedly  expressed. 

In  this  physical  analogy  we  may  perhaps  soonest 
obtain  a  starting  point  for  what  may  in  a  figurative  sense 
be  called  masculinity  and  femininity,  without  having  to 
force  the  facts  of  individual  differentiation  by  means  of 
unjustified  averages.  As  the  bodily  appearance  of  the 
sexes,  both  of  which  bear  the  common  marks  of  the 
race,  consists  in  a  formal  difference,  so  does  also  the 
psychological  sex-difference,  examined  to  its  furthest 
extent,  consist  in  a  formal  quality. 


Outlines  3 1 


We  have  seen  that  it  is  not  possible  to  point  to  a 
natural  principle  in  sex-differentiation,  a  principle  which 
of  necessity  stipulates  a  definitely  circumscribed  con- 
stitution of  being;  likewise  that  physiological  and 
biological  methods  always  lead  to  the  grouping  of 
individuals  into  majorities  and  minorities,  but  are  in- 
capable of  setting  up  an  unexceptionable  type.  In 
addition,  we  have  followed,  in  the  sense  of  the  unlimited 
freedom  of  individuality,  those  instances  which  permit 
of  the  conclusion  that  sexual  differentiation  imposes  no 
limits  on  individual  differentiation. 

But  on  no  account  should  it  be  said  that  the  sexes  are 
not  in  many  cases,  perhaps  in  most  cases,  to  be  distin- 
guished by  spiritual  and  intellectual  peculiarities.  It 
means  nothing  more  than  that  these  psychic  sex  charac- 
teristics are  not  necessarily  bound  up  with  the  sex;  that 
in  a  certain  number  of  individuals,  and  those  often  ex- 
cellent and  distinguished  representatives  of  their  sex, 
they  are  either  wanting  or  even  transposed  into  the 
opposite  traits.  This  only  means  that  the  sexual 
differentiation  in  the  majority  of  individuals  extends 
over  a  greater  psychic  domain.  The  more  primitive 
an  individual,  the  more  the  teleological  qualities  of  the 
sex  will  preponderate  in  his  spiritual  economy,  since 
propagation  is  a  matter  of  greater  importance  in  primi- 
tive life.  In  the  higher  degrees  of  individual  differen- 
tiation and  in  proportion  to  the  fulness  of  the  inner 
life,  the  domination  of  sex-teleology  takes  a  secondary 
place,  inasmuch  as,  as  a  phenomenon  of  adaptation,  it  is 
itself  changed  and  fitted  to  the  altered  conditions  of  life. 

Indeed,   there   are   also   individuals   spiritually   very 


32  A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

distinguished,  in  whom  the  narrower  sphere  of  sex 
remains  undifferentiated.  The  fact  that  the  so-called 
sexual  virtues  take  the  first  place  in  the  social  valuation 
of  the  sexes  should  not  mislead  us  into  considering  them 
so  generally  distributed  and  of  such  worth  as  those  who 
look  upon  every  untypical  individual  as  an  "anomaly  " 
would  wish.  The  examination  of  the  background  of 
these  social  valuations  is  a  separate  study;  the  fact  that 
they  are  so  frequently  (without  further  criticism)  made 
the  basis  of  what  is  "  normal  "  in  matters  of  the  psy- 
chology of  sex  is  only  a  sign  that  philosophical  thought 
is  not  always  a  protection  against  philistine  narrowness. 

The  nature  of  the  individuality  must  in  every  single 
instance  be  separated  from  the  conventional  picture  that 
represents  the  sexual  type  to  current  human  knowledge. 
Even  in  the  sphere  of  erotics,  where  the  generally 
accepted  characteristics  of  man  and  woman  as  ''  active  " 
and  "passive"  have  strongest  sway,  a  careful  analysis 
will  discover  the  individual  differences  to  be  as  great  as 
in  the  rest  of  the  psychic  domain.  Anyone  who  is  not 
misled  by  the  formal  peculiarities  in  the  appearance  of 
the  sexes  knows  how  much  importance  need  be  attached 
to  the  idea  that  the  man  is  always  the  wooing  party; 
and  it  does  not  need  long  observation  to  remark  how 
little  attraction  is  actually  exercised  by  a  completely 
passive  femininity. 

That  which  is  generally  understood  as  the  normal 
conception  of  femininity,  the  teleological  sex  nature, 
can,  from  the  point  of  view  of  a  higher  conception  of 
life,  give  no  clue  for  the  individual.  The  value  of  this 
normative  idea,  looked  at  in  its  relation  to  the  unit,  is 
not  in  the  matter  of  its  content;  not  in  the  determination 
and  completion  of  internal  conditions.     It  is  not  as  a 


Outlines  3  3 

moral  foot-rule — as  a  wide-spread  but  gross  mistake 
would  have  it — that  this  understanding  becomes  a  valu- 
able product  of  the  work  of  civilisation.  But  regarded 
as  a  definite  and  decisive  principle,  then  sexuality  obtains 
a  far-reaching,  if  not  exceptionless,  applicability  without 
coming  into  collision  with  the  claims  of  individual  free- 
dom, which  suffer  no  limitation  from  standards  of  the 
average. 

If  after  we  have  stripped  off  all  the  influences  of 
mode  of  life  and  occupation,  of  custom  and  extraction 
and  freedom,  judgment  from  conventional  prejudices, 
and  particularly  from  our  own  subjective  tendency,  we 
seek  justification  for  all  that  may  still  be  called  manly 
or  unmanly,  womanly  or  unwomanly,  then  we  will  find 
at  the  bottom  of  our  consciousness  a  feeling  difficult 
to  define.  Taking  concrete  examples  as  guides,  it  seems 
quite  clear  that  this  feeling  is  not  directed  against  certain 
qualities.  We  do  not  regard  as  unfeminine  the  great 
women  of  history  or  literature — a  Portia,  Arria,  or 
Charlotte  Corday,  though  their  actions  exhibit  all  the 
energy,  resolution  and  courage  of  a  particularly  mascu- 
line temperament;  nor  as  "  unmanly  "  the  loving  resig- 
nation, gentleness  and  self-sacrifice  by  which  many  of 
the  saints  of  Christian  legends  evince  a  distinctly 
feminine  disposition.  From  this  alone  it  is  evident  that 
in  the  higher  ranks  of  personal  perfection  the  ordinary 
psycho-sexual  categories  are  no  longer  applicable. 
These  divisions  are  more  concerned  with  the  externals  of 
personality  and  the  lower  ranks  of  ordinary  life.  They 
leave  unregarded  an  entire  list  of  qualities  which  point 
to  a  personal  distinction  beyond  all  sex,  as,  for  example, 
strength  of  mind,  force  of  will,  steadfastness,  courage, 
reliability,  etc.     And  in  the  moral  ideal  which  Christen- 

D 


34  ^  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

dom  has  given  to  the  world,  chastity,  humility,  peace- 
fulness,  even  the  need  of  subordination  to  the  guidance 
of  a  higher  will,  are  all  set  forth  as  virtues  irrespective 
of  sex. 

The  fact  that  a  feminine  personality  affects  us  differ- 
ently from  a  masculine  lies  not  so  much  in  what  she 
is  as  in  how  she  is,  in  the  kind  and  manner  of  her  being. 
Thence  it  happens  that  a  woman  may  make  an  impres- 
sion of  complete  womanliness  in  her  appearance,  although 
her  personal  qualities  differ  entirely  from  those  of  the 
average  type  of  her  sex.  A  woman  with  the  bearing 
of  ordinary  masculinity  is,  to  be  sure,  repellent  under 
all  circumstances,  as  is  also  a  man  of  womanish  habits 
and  ways.  In  this  sense  is  meant  the  saying  of  Goethe, 
"  one  should  not  divest  oneself  too  greatly  of  the 
costumes  of  the  world  and  the  period  in  which  one  lives, 
and  a  woman  should  not  wish  to  divest  herself  of  her 
womanliness."  Here  womanliness  is  spoken  of  as  a 
garment  of  the  mind.  As  a  product  of  civilisation, 
meant  to  have  a  normative  value  over  all  individual 
differences,  it  is  nothing  more  than  an  aesthetic  principle. 
If  it  merely  extends  to  appearance  and  surface,  this 
principle  is  certainly  of  as  great  an  importance  here  as 
elsewhere. 

A  very  significant  proof  of  the  extent  to  which  the 
idea  of  femininity  is  influenced  by  formal  considera- 
tions may  be  found  in  racial  differences.  For  example, 
among  Latin  women  the  specifically  feminine  qualities 
are  much  more  marked  than  among  their  northern 
sisters.  This  goes  so  far  that  the  womankind  of  certain 
districts  of  North  Germany,  where  the  prevailing  type 
is  lean,  sinewy  and  big-boned,  and  of  a  serious  and 
untractable  nature,  are  often  reproached  by  Frenchmen 


Outlines  3  5 

and,  indeed,  by  South  Germans,  with  the  saying  that 
they  are  "  not  women  at  all " — although  the  men  of 
their  own  race  consider  them  worthy  representatives  of 
femininity.  In  fact,  the  difference  between  a  Parisienne 
and  one  of  these  North  German  women  is  perhaps 
greater  than  between  the  latter  and  men  of  a  small,  trim 
build  and  a  gentle,  gay,  amiable  nature,  such,  for 
example,  as  are  not  infrequently  found  in  the  Austrian 
army. 

That  which  distinguishes  civilised  man  from  the 
savage  is  not,  in  the  last  analysis,  his  form — to  treat 
as  a  secondary  matter  the  racial  ideal  which  is  held  and 
propagated  by  tradition  is  to  under-rate  one  of  the  most 
valuable  products  of  civilisation.  Particularly  women 
of  culture,  who  owe  so  much  to  aesthetic  principle,  and 
in  whom  it  takes  so  high  a  place,  have  every  reason  to 
treasure  the  formal  idea  of  femininity  as  the  normal  one. 
To  emancipate  oneself  from  the  ethical  normative  of 
femininity,  which  fetters  individuality  because  of  the 
teleological  limits  of  sex,  is  a  distinct  right.  But  to 
preserve  its  formal  quality  is  the  task  of  a  free 
personality. 

The  contradictions  alone,  that  make  the  domain  of 
sexual  psychology  a  labyrinth  of  unsolved  differences 
of  opinion,  go  to  prove  that  masculinity  and  femininity 
as  a  manner  and  form  of  being  are  compatible  with  the 
most  widely  differing  qualities.  The  conceptions  that 
every  individual  has  of  the  constitution  of  the  other 
sex  are  based  not  merely  on  form,  but  undoubtedly  on 
certain  qualities  of  being.  But  that  offers  no  objection. 
For  these  conceptions  are  of  a  purely  subjective  nature; 
they  are  for  the  most  part  derived  from  a  personal 
bias  that  demands  in  the  nature  of  the  other  sex  opposite 

D    2 


36  A  Survey  of  the  Woman   Froblem 

and  complementary  qualities.  They  cannot  serve  as 
objective  measures  of  psycho-sexual  peculiarities  because 
they  are  so  variable  and  contradictory,  as  is  in  the  nature 
of  everything  individual. 

This  conception  of  femininity  as  a  form  of  being, 
and  not  as  a  kind  of  being,  will  therefore  only  satisfy 
that  group  of  people  who  in  advance,  true  to  their 
individual  bent,  regard  the  spiritual  sexual  difference 
as  something  immaterial;  but  it  will  not  satisfy  those 
who,  through  their  individual  disposition  or,  to  put 
it  more  plainly,  through  their  erotic  tastes,  are  forced 
to  seek  in  the  other  sex  a  toto  genere  different  being. 

In  conclusion,  now  that  we  have  opened  an  unlimited 
perspective  to  the  freedom  of  individuality  and  have, 
despite  this,  assured  a  normative  value  to  the  conception 
of  femininity,  nothing  hinders  us  from  once  more  ex- 
plicitly emphasising  the  fact  that  the  majority  of  women 
are,  neither  in  the  qualities  of  character  nor  of  intellect, 
the  equal  of  man.  Indeed,  this  fact  is  not  to  be  denied; 
and  it  weighs  heavily,  very  heavily  on  the  lives  of  those 
women  who  do  not  belong  to  the  majority  of  their  sex. 


MOTHERHOOD     AND     CULTURE 

It  will  always  be  a  clumsy  proceeding  to  apply  the 
method  of  averages  to  an  individual  in  order  to  trace 
out  the  lines  of  his  development  or  to  decide  a  priori 
the  limitations  of  his  nature.  But  having  conceded  that 
the  majority-type  of  the  female  sex  differs  in  nature 
from  that  of  the  male,  one  must  set  forth  the  conse- 
quences of  this  phenomenon.  In  doing  so,  generalisa- 
tions drawn  from  the  average  are  unavoidable;  but  be 
it  premised  that  every  generalisation  is  to  be  received 
with  caution,  because  the  scope  of  its  application  is  only 
in  breadth,  not  in  depth.  The  more  general  an  assertion 
is,  the  more  general  must  be  its  application.  For 
example  :  it  may  be  said  that  woman  is  the  child-bearing 
part  of  mankind;  but  when  one  proceeds  to  the  formula, 
"  the  vocation  of  woman  is  to  become  a  mother,"  one 
oversteps  the  bounds  of  the  generalisation,  in  that  a 
new  idea — that  of  vocation — is  introduced,  from  which 
individual  constituents  cannot  be  eliminated. 

With  this  reservation,  then,  we  concede  that  the  female 
majority-type  is  not  the  equal  of  the  male  either  in 
intellect  or  in  strength  of  will. 

As  to  the  causes  of  this,  opinions  are  strongly  opposed. 
They  are  sought  on  the  one  hand  in  environment,  in 
education,  and  in  the  consequences  of  a  subjection  which 
has  lasted  for  thousands  of  years;  on  the  other  hand. 


sosir.o 


38  A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

in  the  predestined  nature  and  calling  of  woman  and  the 
limitations  appertaining  to  motherhood.  These  limita- 
tions are  innate,  according  to  this  view;  they  are  in- 
volved by  the  burden  of  motherhood;  but  according  to 
the  opposite  theory  man,  not  Nature,  is  responsible  for 
making;  motherhood  into  a  drag-chain  interfering  with 
the  spiritual  and  intellectual  development  of  the  female 
sex.  The  influence  of  environment  and  education  and 
of  the  age-long  subjection  of  woman  has  resulted  only 
in  secondary  sex-differences  which  are  really  attributable 
merely  to  the  male  inclination  to  dominate  over  the 
female. 

It  is,  however,  quite  unnecessary  to  agree  with  either 
the  one  point  of  view  or  the  other — despite  the  fact  that 
both  are  recognised  as  being  opposite  and  as  forming, 
respectively,  the  arguments  of  the  Feminists  on  one 
hand  and  of  the  anti-Feminists  on  the  other — for  it 
is  unmistakably  true  that  the  prevailing  female  type  has 
to  a  considerable  extent  been  determined  by  both  of 
these  influences. 

He  who  wishes  to  form  a  just  estimate  of  woman  and 
her  place  in  the  spiritual  life  and  culture  of  the  world, 
can  by  no  means  afford,  when  estimating  her  achieve- 
ments, to  neglect  her  predestination  to  maternity.  The 
"  equality  "  of  the  sexes  in  general  is  something  which 
one  should  consider  only  in  so  far  as  it  stands  in  relation 
to  the  right  of  individual  self-development — the  abso- 
lute measure  of  comparison  should  only  be  used  in  cases 
where  it  is  necessary  to  give  judgment  between  two 
competitors  of  different  sexes  in  one  single  contingency. 
None  but  the  most  partisan  spirit,  prejudiced  either  for 
or  against,  would  fail  to  acknowledge  that  any  equal 
achievement  of  the  woman  ought  to  be  valued,  subjec- 


Motherhood  and  Culture  39 

tively,  in  a  far  higher  degree,  because  of  the  greater 
difficulties,  from  within  and  from  without,  which  she 
must  overcome.  Indeed,  it  may  be  said  that  one  of  the 
greatest  acts  of  injustice  that  may  be  charged  against 
those  who  uphold  a  supposedly  objective  valuation  lies 
in  comparing  the  feminine  intellectuality  in  a  historical 
sense  with  the  masculine — making  use  of  man  himself 
as  a  masculine  standard. 

Even  in  the  nature  of  those  sexual  relations  which 
serve  as  preliminaries  to  motherhood,  there  is  for  woman 
something  essentially  fettering — a  disposition  towards 
bondage  and  subordination.  Nature  has  made  ample 
provision  against  any  evasion  by  the  individual  of  his 
duties  to  the  race.  With  man  she  has  assumed  the 
performance  of  these  duties  through  an  aggressive 
desire;  with  woman,  in  cases  where  sexual  impulses  do 
not  happen  to  have  an  aggressive  tendency,  she  has 
achieved  the  same  result  by  means  of  a  peculiar  weakness 
of  will  and  a  susceptibility  to  suggestion  which  subject 
her  to  the  influence  of  the  masculine  will.  This  suscepti- 
bility to  suggestion  is  an  intrinsic  factor  in  sexual 
conquest,  and  of  this  Nature  has  made  full  use  as  a 
means  of  more  easily  delivering  the  woman  into  the 
power  of  the  man  than  would  be  possible  if  the  same 
strength  of  will  existed  on  both  sides.  Speaking  gener- 
ally and  according  to  the  evidence  of  the  majority  of 
cases,  it  is  not  man  who  falls  into  the  power  of  woman 
because  of  the  strength  of  her  sex-impulses,  but  rather 
the  woman  who  is  overpowered  by  him.  Indeed,  so 
antagonistic  is  even  his  psychical  attitude  towards  the 
temporary  dependence  under  which  he  is  of  necessity 
placed  because  of  the  mutual  nature  of  the  sexual  act, 
that  this  dependence  becomes  endurable  to  him  only 


40  A  Survey  of  the  IVoman   Problem 

throuo;h  the  operation  of  certain  ideas  of  property  and 
mastership.  The  same  mutuahty  in  the  case  of  the 
woman  is  attended  by  a  feeling  of  submission  and 
dependence. 

The  interests  of  the  female  sex  would  in  no  wise  be 
furthered  were  one  to  overlook  these  obvious  facts, 
despite  the  individual  cases  in  which  an  equality  of 
birth  and  intellectual  equipment  manifests  itself  as  an 
example  of  the  possibilities  of  evolution.  Just  as  the 
teleolo2;ical  power  which  is  granted  to  man  as  a  sexual 
being  is  of  advantage  to  him  as  a  civilised  being,  so,  in 
a  like  degree,  as  human  existence  grows  farther  and 
farther  from  its  original  and  primitive  state,  does  woman 
suffer  in  proportion  to  her  teleological  weakness. 

It  is  true  that  certain  lofty  phenomena  of  the  soul- 
life  of  humanity  have  their  origin  in  teleological  charac- 
teristics. The  maternal  instincts  of  the  female  and  the 
warlike  instincts  of  the  male  sex  furnish  a  soil  in  which, 
under  certain  circumstances,  thrive  the  most  wonderful 
and  uplifting  qualities  of  the  individual.  But  these 
qualities  are  not  in  themselves  the  measures  for  the 
degree  of  worth,  nor  for  the  limitations  imposed  upon 
the  development  of  the  individual. 

A  teleological  analysis  of  the  psychic  differentiations 
of  sex  offers  us  the  only  possibility  for  arriving  at  a 
just  and  objective  system  of  values  for  what  is  specific- 
ally feminine,  especially  with  regard  to  restricting  it  in 
comparison  with  what  is  specifically  masculine.  The 
compulsion  of  woman  to  perform  the  duties  of  propaga- 
tion places  her  under  a  natural  disadvantage.  For  this 
very  reason  the  steadily  growing  differentiation  caused 
by  the  exaggeration  of  teleological  peculiarities  is  not 
likely  to  be  of  service  to  woman.     It  might,   indeed, 


Motherhood  and  Culture  41 

appear  as  Tf  the  homologous  development  of  personality 
according  to  the  tendencies  of  primitive  sex-nature  ought 
to  signify  something  advantageous,  inasmuch  as  that 
individual  being  which  is  most  thoroughly  organised 
for  the  purpose  of  its  natural  calling  would  also  prove 
the  most  efficient.  But  the  problem  is  not  to  be  solved 
in  so  simple  a  manner.  In  her  ingenious  and  thoughtful 
book,  Woman  and  Economics^  Charlotte  Perkins 
contends  that  the  co-operation  of  erotic  and  economic 
movements  in  the  course  of  civilisation's  development 
has  excessively  increased  all  teleological  sex-difFerentia- 
tions,  so  that  man,  in  comparison  with  the  animals,  is 
now  "  over-sexed " — that  is  to  say,  the  functions 
devoted  to  propagation  have  been  forced  beyond  their 
natural  confines. 

But  it  is  only  when  we  consider  the  relation  of  the 
sexes  to  the  after-generations  that  we  are  able  to  realise 
how  great  is  the  significance  of  this  sexual  intensifica- 
tion as  a  restriction  laid  upon  the  intellect  of  woman  in 
comparison  with  that  of  man.  It  is  then  that  the  teleo- 
logical sex-difFerentiation  of  the  woman  is  heightened 
and  increased  by  many  various  means  of  suggestion, 
religious,  social  and  domestic.  The  quality  of  motherli- 
ness  is  given  the  highest  rank  among  those  specifically 
feminine  characteristics  which  are  approved  by  society, 
and  the  mere  weakening  of  its  basic  instinct  is  regarded 
as  a  symptom  of  degeneration.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
quality  of  fatherliness  in  the  man  is  promoted  neither 
by  education  nor  by  common  opinion,  and  even  the 
entire  absence  of  the  instinct  that  underlies  it  is  not 
regarded  as  anything  degrading  to  the  individual.  The 
quality  of  fatherliness  in  man  does  not  fall  within  the 
realm  of  elemental  sex  nature,  but  stands  in  a  certain 


42  A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

opposition  to  the  teleological  instincts  of  masculinity, 
inasmuch  as  it  makes  man  equal  to  woman  under  the 
strain  of  compulsion.  Apart  from  the  close  physical 
relationship  which  unites  the  child  with  its  mother 
during  the  first  period  of  its  existence,  there  is  nothing 
which,  so  far  as  feeling  goes,  distinguishes  the  quality 
of  fatherliness  from  that  of  motherliness.  Fatherliness 
is,  in  fact,  nothing  more  than  the  masculine  form  of 
motherliness. 

But  for  the  very  reason  that  this  quality  represents 
a  trespass  of  man  beyond  the  limits  of  his  teleological 
nature,  it  assumes  an  immense  importance  in  the  history 
of  humanity.  Was  it  not  fatherhood  which  set  its  seal 
upon  the  entire  course  of  history.''  Was  it  not  father- 
hood which  deprived  the  female  sex  of  its  social  freedom 
and  usurped  unto  itself  dominion  over  the  soul  and 
body  of  woman."*  Charlotte  Perkins  conditions  the 
evolution  of  man  from  a  primitive  state  to  the  higher 
levels  by  the  fact  that  "  the  free  operation  of  the  forces 
of  maternity  was  circumscribed  in  woman,  whereas 
similar  forces  in  man  were  awakened  and  developed." 

Yet  the  serious  consequences  which  have  overtaken 
the  female  sex  under  the  conditions  of  modern  life  have 
not  arisen  merely  as  a  result  of  the  exaggeration  of  the 
specific  sexual  character,  but  from  sex  itself.  Under 
these  conditions  even  the  honourable  and  highly-revered 
aspects  of  the  essentially  feminine  nature  suffer  serious 
disadvantages;  and  if  one  regards  the  other  side  of  this 
nature,  many  and  serious  evils  are  revealed.  For  the 
same  teleological  peculiarities  which  in  one  direction 
equip  woman  for  the  duties  of  propagation— the  weak- 
ness of  will  which  subjects  itself  without  resistance  to 
external  influences,  the  intellectual  inferiority  which  is 


Motherhood  and  Culture  43 

unable  to  cope  with  anything  beyond  what  is  communic- 
able through  the  senses,  the  preponderance  of  a  vegeta- 
tive Hfe  in  a  spiritual-corporeal  constitution — in  short, 
everything  which  may  be  summed  up  in  the  conception 
of  feminine  passivity— it  is  these  very  qualities  which 
in  another  direction  bring  woman  to  the  state  in  which 
she  remains  a  mere  tool  of  sex,  serving  the  lowest 
masculine  instincts.  In  other  words,  the  bright  side  of 
the  teleological  sex  nature  disposes  woman  to  maternity, 
the  shadow  side  of  the  same  nature — to  prostitution. 

The  instinct  of  exclusive  surrender  to  a  single  man 
which  is  so  often  described  as  one  of  the  *'  basic 
instincts  "  of  the  feminine  soul,  is  really  a  cultivated 
product — the  result  of  a  greater  differentiation  of 
woman.  It  has  no  place  in  the  domain  of  her  primitive 
sex-nature.  For  the  exclusiveness  of  the  surrender 
implies,  among  other  things,  an  act  of  the  moral  will, 
a  personal  power  of  resistance  against  inner  and  outer 
temptations  which  at  once  lifts  the  female  far  above 
the  passivity  and  weakness  of  her  teleological  sex-nature. 
Without  the  possession  of  characteristics  which  are  more 
positive  and  therefore  more  "  masculine  "  than  those 
which  originate  only  in  the  psycho-sexual  disposition  of 
primitive  womanhood — sexual  integrity  as  a  voluntary 
moral  function  is  unthinkable. 

The  fact  that  the  tendency  of  primitive  womanhood 
towards  promiscuity  in  the  sexual  relationship  is  con- 
sidered as  infamous  in  the  civilisation  of  western  lands, 
bringing  about  the  deepest  degradation  of  the  in- 
dividual, is  only  a  proof  that,  no  matter  in  what  degree 
hypocrisy  and  falsehood  may  come  into  play,  woman 
as  a  mere  elemental  being  can  no  longer  exist  honourably 
under  the  moral  standards  of  such  a  civilisation.    On  the 


44  ^  Survey  of  the   Woman  Problem 

hypothesis  of  the  primitive  life  this  tendency  of  woman- 
hood is  judged  from  quite  another  point  of  view,  for 
it  is  well  known  that  many  non-European  peoples, 
among  them  even  those  who,  like  the  Japanese,  have 
achieved  a  high  degree  of  culture,  differ  essentially  in 
this  matter  from  the  Europeans.  Even  in  the  pre- 
Christian  days  of  civilised  European  nations  one  en- 
counters customs,  like  that  of  prostitution  as  an  act 
of  hospitality,  which  indicate  a  conception  of  morality 
differing^  2;reatly  from  the  modern  point  of  view.  The 
hidden  relation  which  exists  between  the  highest,  most 
honoured  attribute  of  woman — her  adaptation  for 
motherhood — and  her  most  dishonourable  one,  par- 
takes, therefore,  of  something  monstrous  only  in  that 
estimation  of  woman  which  is  held  by  western  nations. 
This  relation  appears  still  more  plainly  wherever  the 
emotions  have  remained  more  primeval,  and  it  emerges 
fully  revealed  in  those  levels  of  folk  morality  in  which 
motherhood  is  still  unseparated  from  sexual  promiscuity 
and  primitive  womanhood  has  assumed  the  reins  of 
power  in  the  shape  of  a  Matriarchate. 

The  advance  of  civilisation  distinguishes  the  ten- 
dencies of  primitive  womanhood  by  contrasts  ever  more 
sharply  marked,  and  yet  in  no  way  annuls  the  influences 
which,  under  unfavourable  circumstances,  originate  in 
the  teleological  feminine  nature.  When  the  protection 
afforded  by  external  circumstances  does  not  step  in 
as  a  preventive  measure,  then  those  womien  who  in 
an  atavistic  degree  still  happen  to  be  under  the  influence 
of  the  teleological  weakness  of  their  sex,  must,  according; 
to  the  demands  of  modern  social  laws,  fall  into  a  manner 
of  life  which  exposes  them  to  all  the  lawless  despotism 
of   masculine  sexuality.     Assuming  that   the  primitive 


Motherhood  and  Culture  45 

nature  of  the  urging  which  drives  the  unprotected 
creature  into  prostitution  may  be  stigmatised  as  a  symp- 
tom of  degeneracy,  as  Lombroso  holds,  it  nevertheless 
constitutes  a  terrible  threat  for  those  members  of  the 
female  sex  in  whom  an  inner  weakness  is  accompanied 
by  an  economic  precariousness  of  the  external  means  of 
existence. 

It  is  in  the  social  factor  of  prostitution  that  the 
teleological  libidiousness  of  masculinity  in  its  relation 
to  the  teleological  weakness  of  femininity  appears  with 
all  the  cruel  relentlessness  that  rages  in  elemental  nature 
when  the  strong  wage  war  against  the  feeble.  And  the 
prevailing  morality  which  pardons  the  man  while  laying 
the  entire  burden  of  guilt  upon  the  woman  is  here 
plainly  shown  to  be  nothing  more  than  a  sanctioning  of 
this  war.  Man,  of  course,  as  a  mere  elemental  being, 
is  not  to  be  held  responsible  for  the  constitution  of  a 
sexual  nature  in  which  the  irresistible  and  the  uncon- 
strained elements  represent  a  teleological  operation — 
but  only  when  this  very  sex-nature  is  urged  as  a  capacity 
in  the  male  sex  for  developing  a  higher  spiritual  morality 
than  is  possible  for  the  female ! 

A  state  of  society  which  so  deeply  degrades  woman 
on  account  of  a  mere  essential  feminine  weakness, 
should  not  venture  upon  a  propaganda  in  which  the  un- 
limited development  of  the  specific  sex-character  is 
advocated  as  a  principle  of  evolution  for  woman.  It 
would  prove  necessary  to  pay  close  attention  not  only 
to  the  protected  woman,  and  to  the  so-called  "  noble 
womanhood,"  but  also  to  the  female  sex  as  a  whole  with 
all  the  idiosyncrasies  which  attach  to  its  primitive  nature 
and  social  position  and  furnish  such  strong  and  unfor- 
tunate evidences  of  its  teleological  weakness.      It  is  a 


46  A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

fatal  error  on  the  part  of  women  of  the  favoured  classes 
to  fancy  that  they  are  entirely  free  of  the  stigma  which 
is  inflicted  upon  the  abandoned  classes.  In  reality, 
neither  their  social  position  nor  their  individual  lives 
remain  uninfluenced  thereby,  and  the  dark  sides  of  teleo- 
logical  womanliness  avenge  themselves  no  less  upon 
those  who  are  supposed  to  be  dedicated  only  to  the 
worship  of  its  brighter  side. 

"  Woman "  is  a  Janus-headed  creature :  one  face 
distorted  by  the  deepest  degradation  with  which  civilisa- 
tion could  pollute  a  human  being,  the  other  face  shining 
with  the  loftiest  dignity  with  which  the  human  race 
rewards  the  fulfilment  of  its  heaviest  duties. 

But  let  us  also  inspect  this  face  a  little  more  closely. 
As  a  mother,  woman  enjoys  the  most  ecstatic  venera- 
tion :  before  this  awe-inspiring  and  moving  figure  all 
the  powers  of  life  bend  low  in  order  to  offer  her  a 
crown.  This  strain,  at  least,  echoes  in  all  its  endless 
variations  from  every  nook  and  corner  of  that  world 
which  lies  poised  above  the  real  world  in  clouds  of  senti- 
ment and  beautiful  thoughts.  In  the  real  world  woman 
as  a  mother  is  somewhat  less  happily  situated.  Not  only 
the  unmarried  mother — and  it  is  only  necessary  to 
summon  up  this  sad  and  dishonoured  figure  in  order 
to  lay  bare  the  whole  hollow  phraseology  of  the  con- 
ventional glorification  of  motherhood — but  even  the 
accredited  mother,  even  she  who  is  distinguished  by 
many  social  honours,  pays  dearly  for  her  maternity. 
The  price  which  is  paid  is  nothing  less  than  spiritual 
freedom  and  equality  of  birth,  and  the  farther  humanity 
advances  toward  higher  forms,  just  so  much  farther 
must  the  female  sex,  for  the  sake  of  motherhood,  remain 
behind  the  male. 


Motherhood  and  Culture  47 

The  teleological  peculiarities  which  dispose  woman 
to  motherhood  create  at  the  same  time  an  impediment 
to  her  mental  development.  It  is  vain  to  endeavour  to 
override  this  point  by  declaring  that  the  education  of 
children,  which  in  itself  forms  an  integral  part  of 
motherhood,  makes  lofty  demands  upon  the  psychic  and 
intellectual  nature  of  the  maternal  woman.  The  modern 
arrangements  for  education  which  form  part  of  a 
differentiated  and  cultured  social  order,  have  nothing  in 
common  with  the  provisions  made  by  nature  for  her 
purposes  of  propagation. 

Mobius,  among  others,  has  dealt  with  the  relations  that 
subsist  between  primitive  femininity  and  the  purposes 
of  propagation  in  his  well-known  treatise,  in  which  the 
teleological  sex-nature  is  described  as  "  the  physiological 
feeble-mindedness  of  the  female."  Surely  the  fact  that 
so  superficial  an  elaboration  of  the  question  could  arouse 
such  attention  must  be  ascribed  to  the  purely  aggressive 
nature  of  this  term,  just  as  the  narrow-minded  vindic- 
tiveness  of  the  author's  attitude  was  responsible  for  the 
great  bitterness  it  produced.  Moreover,  should  anyone 
care  to  observe  how  greatly  the  feminine  intellect  may  in 
certain  cases  excel  in  quality  that  of  the  masculine  mind, 
let  him  read  Oda  Olberg's  book.  Woman  and  Intel- 
lectudism — a  work  which,  incited  by  the  brochure  of 
Mobius,  handles  these  pertinent  problems  with  a  deep, 
comprehensive  grasp  and  a  fine  objectivity. 

Mobius  postulates  the  point  of  view  that  "  the  entire 
nature  of  woman  is  teleologically  affected  only  in  the 
slightest  degree."  He  thus  explains  teleologically  the 
tendency  to  deception  or  falsehood  which  is  so  fre- 
quently charged  against  woman  in  her  sexual  attitude 
towards  man.      Falsehood  is  her  "  natural  and   indis- 


48  A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

pensable  weapon  which  she  finds  it  impossible  to 
resign,"  and  in  order  to  fulfil  her  destiny  of  motherhood 
woman  must  be  "  child-like,  patient,  and  simple-souled." 
"  Far-reaching  force  and  power,  phantasy  and  thirst  for 
knowledge,  would  surely  make  woman  restless  and 
hinder  her  in  her  maternal  ends — therefore  Nature  gave 
her  these  qualities  in  very  small  doses." 

Nothing  need  be  urged  against  this  point  of  view : 
it  contains  a  justification  of  female  infirmity  by  means 
of  the  very  processes  of  nature  herself.  The  fact  that 
Mobius  stands  in  relation  to  this  nature  process  as  a 
subjective  masculine  personality,  and  as  a  partisan  in  the 
question,  vitiates  his  work,  but  it  is  injured  still  more 
by  the  lack  of  a  higher  point  of  view  from  which  he 
might  appreciate  the  problems  of  civilisation.  He  con- 
ceives of  woman  as  a  mere  elemental  creature,  and  sees 
her  only  in  the  perspective  of  her  maternal  calling.  But 
it  is  impossible  in  any  highly  developed  state  of  society 
to  regard  man  and  woman  as  mere  elemental  beings 
unless  we  also  regard  all  civilisation  as  futile  or  as  a 
process  of  degeneration.  For  this  reason  the  point  of 
view  assumed  by  Mobius  is  totally  obscure  and  contra- 
dictory. On  the  one  hand,  he  accuses  women  of  hating 
all  new  things  and  of  frequently  hanging  themselves 
like  so  much  lead  about  the  neck  of  the  struggling  man  : 
"  Just  as  animals  since  time  immemorial  do  the  same 
things  over  and  over  again,  so  would  the  human  race, 
had  there  been  only  women,  have  remained  in  its  pris- 
tine state.  All  progress  derives  from  the  man."  But, 
on  the  other  hand,  he  is  unable  to  find  any  measure  of 
comparison  for  this  progress — (and  what  might  "  pro- 
gress "  mean,  if  not  the  advance  of  civilisation }) — save 
this  same  pristine  state  which  he  must  really  consider  as 


Motherhood  and  Culture  49 

the  only  healthy  and  normal  condition.  For  he  not  only 
holds  that  it  is  one  of  the  unavoidable  functions  of 
civilisations  to  produce  degenerate  types,  such  as  mascu- 
line women  and  feminine  men,  but  he  also  charges 
civilisation  with  destroying  the  sources  of  life  and  with 
bringing  about  the  doom  of  the  people  afflicted  by  it, 
should  it  not  be  reinvigorated  in  time  by  fresh  infusions 
of  barbaric  blood.  That  is  as  much  as  to  say  that  all 
progress  which  derives  from  man  is  pernicious,  and  all 
the  most  dominant  idiosyncrasies  of  the  male  which 
assure  him  his  advantage  over  the  female,  a  misfortune 
for  humanity. 

What  has  all  this  to  do  with  the  conceptions  of  a 
pristine  state,  degeneration,  progress,  and  civilisation .'' 
What  place  is  to  be  relegated  to  civilisation  in  the  life 
of  humanity,  and  what  place  must  the  individual  assume 
in  the  problems  of  civilisation  ? 

Nature— and  by  this  term  is  to  be  understood  the 
entire  complex  of  the  primitive  life  functions,  as  contra- 
distinguished from  the  higher  impulses  derived  from  the 
human  intellect — Nature  had  no  other  purpose  in  view 
so  far  as  woman  was  concerned,  than  to  adapt  her  for 
motherhood,  even  at  the  cost  of  rendering  all  her  other 
capacities  inferior  to  those  of  the  man.  Nature  flung 
an  enormous  burden  upon  woman,  inasmuch  as  from 
the  moment  of  conception  onward  she  placed  the  entire 
work  of  generation  within  the  female  organism  and 
subordinated  it  for  the  greater  part  of  its  individual  life 
to  this  one  task.  In  this  way  she  exercised  the  greatest 
injustice  in  distributing  the  duties  of  propagation  be- 
tween the  two  sexes.  Indeed,  so  unjust  is  this  distri- 
bution, that  even  in  primitive  times  the  moral  sense  of 
man  found  it  necessary  to  explain  it  by  some  theory  of 

E 


50  A  Survey  of  the  Wo?nan  Problem 

original  sin,  so  that  the  sufferings  which  were  laid  upon 
woman  might  be  considered  as  nothing  more  than 
punishment.  For  this  reason  does  Genesis  in  the  Old 
Testament  declare  woman  to  be  the  temptress  of  man, 
and  places  the  stern  words  of  the  following  sentence  in 
God's  mouth  :  — 

"  I  will  greatly  multiply  thy  sorrow  and  thy  concep- 
tion :  in  sorrow  thou  shalt  bring  forth  children,  and  thy 
desire  shall  be  to  thy  husband,  and  he  shall  rule  over 
thee." 

And  this  idea  has  taken  root  so  permanently  that  even 
in  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century,  when  attempts 
were  first  made  in  England  to  use  anaesthetics  in  cases 
of  painful  births,  the  English  Church  protested  against 
it  as  a  suspension  and  amelioration  of  a  divinely-decreed 
punishment! 

The  moral  mania  which  would  account  for  the  misery 
of  human  existence  by  the  supposition  of  an  inherent 
sin  has  cost  woman  more  dearly  than  man,  for  he  has 
added  guilt  to  her  misfortune,  and  instead  of  alleviating 
the  natural  lot  of  woman,  has  merely  added  to  its 
severity. 

Nature  may  have  laid  a  heavy  burden  upon  woman, 
but  civilisation  has  increased  it  to  an  unbearable  degree. 
The  predisposition  to  disease  of  all  sorts,  the  diminution 
of  resistance  in  the  physique,  the  bodily  softening  which 
follows  in  the  path  of  civilisation,  exact  a  heavier  penalty 
from  the  female  organism  than  the  male,  because  the 
undisturbed  operation  of  the  processes  of  gestation 
necessitates  complete  and  perfect  health.  Every  decrease 
in  the  physical  powers  of  endurance  in  the  race  injures 
the  female  organism  in  its  capacity  as  an  instrument  of 
propagation,  and  the  more  refined  the  manner  of  life 


Motherhood  and  Culture  51 

so  much  the  more  difficult  are  the  duties  of  mother- 
hood. 

However  evil  the  damaging  influences  of  civilisation 
may  be  with  regard  to  physical  qualities,  the  moral 
values  which  have  arisen  in  the  track  of  civilisation  are 
still  more  fatal  to  woman  as  a  personality.  Civilisation 
makes  of  man  a  twofold  beino-  whose  intellectual  duties 
attain  to  a  higher  rank  than  his  natural  duties.  It  like- 
wise differentiates  individuals  according  to  another 
principle  than  that  of  genus,  which  decrees  woman  to 
be  the  mother  and  man  the  begetter  and  also  the  sup- 
porter and  defender  of  the  family.  Inasmuch  as  to  the 
duties  of  generation  it  opposes  the  duties  of  personality, 
civilisation  brings  about  a  rift  in  the  nature  of  the  human 
being  and  separates  his  consciousness  into  two  spheres 
of  interest;  spheres  which,  antagonistic  at  many  points, 
are  the  source  of  deep  and  serious  conflicts.  The  higher 
the  individual  life  rises  in  the  scale  of  worth,  and  the 
more  complete  it  becomes  through  achievements  and 
indulgences  of  its  personality,  the  more  easily  does  it 
lose  a  proportionate  interest  in  those  duties  of  propaga- 
tion to  which  the  woman  is  so  much  more  subservient 
than  the  man.  And  with  this  declines  also  the  value 
which  woman  as  such  possesses  in  a  state  of  civilised 
society. 

Civilisation  being  almost  entirely  a  product  of  man, 
shows  in  such  results  as  these  that  it  is  based  chiefly 
upon  his  own  needs  and  requirements.  In  primitive 
conditions  motherhood  forms  no  bar  nor  hindrance  to 
the  woman  in  any  direction.  Whether  a  gynecocratic 
interpretation  of  "  primal  society "  be  considered  as 
proved  or  not,  the  fact  remains  that  the  simple  division 
of  labour  between  the  sexes  gives  to  the  female  the  same 

E  2 


52  A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

rank  and  value  as  the  male — the  same  condition  exists, 
likewise,  among  those  relations  of  man,  the  higher  mam- 
mals. It  is  only  under  the  exactions  of  civilisation  that 
woman  is  doomed,  because  of  her  maternity,  to  occupy 
the  position  of  a  subordinate  and  dependent  creature,  a 
human  being  of  the  second  order.  The  greater  freedom 
of  action  which  man  by  nature  enjoys  takes  advantage 
of  the  sexual  bondage  of  the  woman,  and  thus  gives  to 
him  his  mastership  in  civilised  society. 

But  that  is  in  no  wise  to  be  considered  as  an  objection 
to  civilisation  in  itself.  As  little  as  the  frequently 
observed  decay  of  civilised  peoples  can  be  ascribed  to 
the  influence  of  civilisation  rather  than  to  the  laws  of 
life  which  manifest  themselves  in  the  birth,  ripening 
and  decay  of  all  things,  just  so  little  is  there  in  the 
nature  of  civilisation  to  decree  that  it  should  offer  the 
woman  a  lesser  chance  of  development.  The  one- 
sidedness  and  imperfection  of  all  the  systems  of  civilisa- 
tion reflect  only  the  shortcomings  of  the  human  intellect, 
which,  as  a  growing  and  developing  thing,  is  unable  to 
create  fitting  and  perfect  forms  or  systems  in  which  to 
work  out  its  destiny.  It  is  part  of  the  teleological  sex- 
nature  which  assures  such  an  advantage  to  man  over 
woman  that  it  should  be  he  who  first  appears  as  the 
culture-creating  element.  It  is  only  where  civilisation 
has  attained  to  a  lofty  level,  and  the  consequences  of 
certain  influences  of  culture  have  reached  their  full 
development  in  man,  that  there  presents  itself  to  woman 
any  possibility  of  taking  part  in  the  work  of  civilisation 
beyond  the  family  circle  and  thus  obviating  the  one- 
sidedness  of  masculine  culture. 

But  even  with  the  limitations  which  this  masculine 
culture  has  imposed  upon  the  female  sex,  its  mission  has 


Motherhood  and  Culture  53 

never  been  so  narrowly  restricted  as  is  now  demanded 
by  those  modern  anti-feminists  who  would  confine 
woman  entirely  to  the  duties  of  motherhood.  They 
overlook  the  fact  that  the  limiting  of  feminine  activities 
to  the  family  circle  is  related  neither  to  the  most  primi- 
tive nor  to  the  highest  forms  of  woman's  life.  Among 
so-called  aboriginal  tribes  women  are  burdened  with  a 
great  many  duties  which,  according  to  our  ideas,  ill 
accord  with  motherhood.  They  perform  the  heaviest 
labour,  the  very  labours,  in  fact,  for  which  uncivilised 
manhood  has  neither  patience  nor  discipline,  and  with 
these  women  motherhood  is  something  merely  inci- 
dental. But  in  the  higher  circles  of  the  society  of 
occidental  countries  woman  has  to  fulfil  the  duties  of  a 
fine  sociability  and  act  as  the  representative  of  her  rank — 
the  life  led  by  the  fashionable  woman  being  in  no  wise 
favourable  to  maternity,  but  from  many  considerations 
decidedly  prejudicial. 

Certainly,  society  ladies  do  not  dedicate  the  greater 
part  of  their  time  or  their  life's  interests  to  their 
children.  It  is  almost  inevitable  in  an  upper-class  house- 
hold that  the  education  of  children  should  be  left  to  paid 
assistants,  and  those  women  who  stand  highest  in  the 
rank  of  cultured  European  society  are  not  even  per- 
mitted to  suckle  their  children. 

Even  the  assumption  that  the  highest  destiny  of 
woman  lies  in  motherhood  is  refuted  by  the  history  of 
civilisation.  The  moral  precepts  of  different  nations 
have  at  all  times  given  particular  importance  to  the 
renunciation  of  motherhood  under  certain  circumstances, 
and  the  high  value  set  upon  virginity  in  the  service  of 
religious  representations  proves  plainly  enough  that 
human  society  granted  to  certain  women  another  voca- 


54  ^  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

tion  than  the  so-called  natural  one.  Even  in  antique 
civilisations  those  intermediaries  between  the  profane 
world  and  the  divine,  the  priests,  were,  so  far  as  con- 
cerned the  women  who  took  part,  bound  in  many  ways 
to  the  preservation  of  virginity.  Even  in  Rome,  where 
motherhood  was  certainly  accorded  the  highest  rever- 
ence, the  vestals — women  who  were  denied  motherhood 
for  the  sake  of  a  higher  mission— enjoyed  the  greatest 
civic  honours.  Certain  forms  of  Greek  and  Roman 
temple-worship  seem  to  be  based  upon  the  idea  that  the 
economy  of  human  society  was  not  able  to  bestow 
motherhood  upon  all  women,  for  which  reason  even 
those  women — (usually  considered  everywhere  as  the 
most  degraded  and  degenerate) — who,  not  possessing  the 
will  to  motherhood,  nevertheless  placed  themselves  in 
the  service  of  sex — were  to  be  rehabilitated  by  certain 
religious  observances. 

Even  in  the  world  of  Christianity,  in  which,  as  we 
are  aware,  motherhood  and  virginity  have  been  fused 
into  a  single  mystery,  and  one  of  whose  direct  precepts 
is  Paul's  saying  that  woman  would  "  become  blessed 
through  the  bearing  of  children,"  virginity  triumphed — 
virginity  which,  in  real  life,  could  never  be  united  with 
maternity.  A  vast  number  of  the  most  excellent  women 
devoted  to  the  spiritual  Christian  life  have  preferred 
virginity  to  motherhood.  For  the  religious  perceptions 
of  the  Middle  Ages  regarded  the  state  of  celibacy  as  the 
only  one  suitable  for  the  higher  spirituality.  Reli- 
giously inclined  women,  like  religiously  inclined  men, 
sought  to  prepare  themselves  through  refuge  in  cloisters 
for  that  eternal  life  which,  beyond  all  considerations  of 
male  or  female,  and  undamaged  by  decrees  which  indi- 
cated that  the  way  to  blessedness  lay  in  the  begetting  of 


Motherhood  and  Culture  55 

children,  offered  to  each  sex  the  same  state  of  pure 
spiritual  felicity. 

And  even  to-day  there  are  countless  numbers  of 
women  who,  for  the  sake  of  this  promised  heaven,  with- 
draw themselves  into  cloisters  and  resign  all  hopes  of 
motherhood,  without  in  any  way  being  considered  as 
socially  inferior  or  as  degenerate  examples  of  woman- 
hood. 

There  can,  therefore,  be  no  reason  why  women  who, 
for  the  sake  of  intellectual  interests,  choose  to  forgo 
motherhood,  should  be  covered  with  reproach.  Only  an 
age  like  the  present,  which  no  longer  possesses  a 
spiritual  guidance,  or  ideals,  would  consider  the  avoid- 
ance of  maternity  as  an  objection  to  the  intellectual 
endeavours  of  certain  women. 

Moreover,  there  is  no  necessity  for  an  absolute  renun- 
ciation of  this  function.  Motherhood  and  intellectual 
labour  do  not  mutually  exclude  each  other;  they  merely 
create  more  difficult  conditions  in  the  life  of  the  indi- 
vidual. Is  it  necessary  first  to  prove  that  motherhood  in 
itself,  the  bearing,  bringing  forth,  and  rearing  of 
children,  makes  heavy  physical  and  psychical  demands 
upon  the  individual,  and  that  these  demands  increase  in 
direct  proportion  with  the  number  of  children }  But  as 
evidence  of  how  even  the  most  obvious  truths  have 
become  questionable,  it  is  only  necessary  to  point  to 
books,  such  as  those  written  by  Adele  Gerhardt  and 
Helene  Simon,  in  which  an  elaborate  investigation  is 
made,  to  ascertain  "whether  motherhood  and  intel- 
lectual work  "  hinder  each  other,  and  in  what  way. 

If  it  were  true — as  has  been  tirelessly  affirmed  by 
whole  schools  of  sociologists  ever  since  the  days  of 
Rousseau— that  it  is  the  duty  of  every  woman  to  be 


56  A  Survey  of  the  Womati   Problem 

constantly  pregnant  because  the  "  genius  of  the  race  " 
demands  this  (Sombart),  then,  to  be  sure,  there  would 
be  no  possibility  of  uniting  motherhood  and  intellectual 
work,  for  the  complete  using-up  of  feminine  fertility 
permits  of  no  participation  in  other  activities. 

But,  having  regard  to  the  difficult  and  complicated 
conditions  which  lie  at  the  root  of  the  problem  of  popu- 
lation, such  decisions,  valid  only  for  the  simplest,  most 
primitive  forms  of  society,  will  hardly  suffice.  The 
right  of  the  individual  deliberately  to  limit  the  number 
of  offspring  cannot,  as  a  matter  of  principle,  be  disputed, 
even  though  it  may  remain  an  open  question  whether 
the  declaration  of  Malthus  that  it  is  even  a  sacred  duty 
of  that  individual,  be  justifiable.  As  a  moral  problem 
the  only  question  is  whether  there  be  any  moral  differ- 
ence between  the  means  of  restriction  employed — that  is 
to  say,  between  abstinence  and  prevention. 

Nature  herself  who,  through  elemental  means, 
furthers  the  human  increase,  also  provides  the  elemental 
means  for  the  necessary  restriction.  Even  in  the  midst 
of  civilisation  there  exist  conditions  which  betray  the 
fact  that  the  virtual  capacity  for  increase  is  subject  to 
the  same  laws  which  limit  it  in  the  realm  of  primitive 
nature.  Among  these  conditions — if  we  exclude  war  as 
an  abnormal  contingency — we  may  first  cite  the  enor- 
mous infant  mortality  among  the  lower  classes,  or  the 
involuntary  celibacy  of  unmarried  women — whose 
numbers  in  Germany  alone  amount  to  some  two 
millions.  But  more  potent  than  all  other  factors  in  a 
pseudo-monogamous  state  of  society  such  as  that  of 
modern  civilised  nations,  does  the  factor  of  prostitution 
operate  to  limit  the  natural  increase  in  the  population. 

It  may  safely  be  left  for  the  moralists  to  decide  which 


Motherhood  and  Culture  57 

manner  of  restriction  may  be  called  the  most  pernicious, 
but  why  should  the  compensating  factor  of  an  increase 
in  population,  hindered  as  it  is  by  so  many  other 
influences,  be  exacted  only  from  married  women? 

If  the  history  of  mankind  is  to  instruct  us  further, 
the  deliberate  restriction  of  offspring  is  a  phenomenon 
which  necessarily  begins  to  manifest  itself  as  soon  as 
the  density  of  population  in  relation  to  the  means  of 
subsistence  has  reached  a  certain  height — whether  the 
means  of  prevention  are  such  as  are  in  use  among  occi- 
dental peoples,  or  whether  the  barbaric  method  of 
exposing  and  slaying  infants  prevails,  as  in  the  Orient. 

Those  rigorous  extremists  who  defend  the  cause  of 
propagation,  and  insist  on  a  complete  exhaustion  of  the 
fertility  of  married  women,  frequently  charge  certain 
features  of  the  woman's  movement  with  beino;  respon- 
sible for  the  growing  disinclination  of  cultured  women 
to  bear  an  unrestricted  number  of  children.  He  who 
believes  that  the  slight  influences  which  these  features 
have  hitherto  exerted  could  produce  such  far-reaching 
results,  should  devote  himself  to  a  study  of  France, 
where  the  increase  in  population  was  commonly  known 
to  have  come  to  a  standstill  long  before  the  first  sign  of 
a  French  feminist  movement  made  itself  visible.  More- 
over, what  short-sightedness  it  is  to  hold  only  the  female 
portion  of  the  population  responsible  for  the  causes  of 
this  standstill !  In  that  respect  the  astute  originators  of 
the  Code  Napoleon  had  a  far  deeper  glimpse  into  the 
verity  of  things  when  they  framed  that  regulation 
which,  unmerciful  as  it  may  have  been  with  regard  to 
the  teleological  weakness  of  the  female,  nevertheless 
aided  the  cause  of  procreation,  even  if  in  an  illegitimate 
way:  la  recherche  de  la  paternite  est  interdite. 


58  A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

The  woman's  movement  and  the  disinclination  for 
an  unrestricted  number  of  children  are  phenomena  which 
are  coincident  in  time,  but  do  not  stand  in  relation  to 
each  other  as  cause  and  effect.  It  is  possible  that  one 
may  be  able  to  trace  some  connection  between  them  in 
the  profounder  basic  strata  of  the  social  structure  in 
which  they  appear.  Primitive  communities,  which  are 
predominantly  warlike  and  show  an  inordinate  consump- 
tion of  human  lives,  must  make  use  of  the  fertility  of 
their  women  to  the  fullest  extent.  Highly  cultivated, 
and  for  that  reason  peace-loving  communities,  grant  a 
longer  average  measure  of  life  to  their  members.  The 
renewal  of  the  generations  need  not  take  place  so  rapidly, 
and  the  single  individual  whose  cultivation  takes  so 
much  longer,  and  is  so  much  more  tedious  and  costly 
than  is  the  case  in  primitive  conditions,  represents  a 
being  of  superior  worth.  It  is,  therefore,  a  necessary 
consequence  of  culture  that  the  unrestricted  functioning 
of  motherhood  is  no  longer  regarded  by  the  social  con- 
sciousness as  of  the  same  incomparable  importance. 
And  it  appears  to  be  equally  inevitable  that  the  number 
of  women  who  can  devote  themselves  to  the  function 
must  decline  in  the  same  proportion  as  the  external  and 
internal  conditions  of  existence  become  more  and  more 
complicated  for  the  individual. 

A  woman  who  is  to  fulfil  her  destiny  may  dedicate 
herself  either  to  producing  a  numerous  family  or  to 
following  a  profession.  But  should  she  decide  to  burden 
herself  with  neither,  then  the  value  of  her  life  must 
decline  in  comparison  with  the  achievements  which 
represented  a  woman's  life  in  earlier  epochs  of  civilisa- 
tion— (for  to  have  borne  and  raised  ten  or  twelve 
children,  and,  in  addition  to  this,  to  have  conducted  a 


Motherhood  and  Culture  59 

household  under  the  former  primitive  conditions  of  pro- 
duction— that  certainly  was  an  accomplishment  excelled 
by  very  few!) — although  the  value  of  such  a  woman's 
life  sinks  still  farther  when  compared  with  the  tasks 
accomplished  by  man. 

Such  is  the  fate  of  the  middle-class  women  of  the 
present.  Only  a  very  few  of  the  professions  are  open 
to  them,  and  the  exercise  of  all  activity  outside  the 
circle  of  the  family  is  rendered  extremely  difficult  for 
them  as  soon  as  they  seek  to  combine  it  with  the 
"  natural  "  calling  of  woman.  Whosoever  would  at- 
tempt to  persuade  such  women  to  an  acceptance  of  un- 
controlled motherhood,  or  endeavour  to  hold  up  to  them 
the  life-work  of  women  of  an  earlier  period  as  a  model, 
cannot  be  aware  of  the  deep-lying  causes  of  the  changes 
with  which  the  civilisation  of  the  present  day  is  indis- 
solubly  bound  up.  And  when,  as  present  evidence 
shows,  there  is  an  attempt  to  introduce  laws  making 
marriage  impossible  for  those  women  who  occupy  public 
positions,  or  even  directly  to  forbid  them  to  enter  the 
marriage  state,  then  one  merely  takes  away  with  one 
hand  that  which  one  exacts  with  the  other,  and  adds, 
officially,  another  factor  to  those  which  are  already  at 
work  in  the  restriction  of  the  population. 

The  tendencies  of  the  woman's  movement  have  also 
been  attacked  as  conducive  to  degeneration,  inasmuch 
as  they  alienated  woman  from  her  proper  vocation  and 
filled  her  with  an  intellectual  pride  and  ambition  pre- 
judicial to  her  mission  as  a  mother.  The  fact  has  been 
overlooked  that  it  is  precisely  the  woman's  movement 
which  acts  as  a  palliative  to  the  dangers  of  degeneration 
caused  by  the  indolence  of  those  women  of  the  wealthier 
classes  whose  original  sphere  of  labour  has  been  lost  in 


6o  A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

a  social  order  that  has  not  provided  them  with  any 
equivalent  in  the  work  of  society. 

The  numerical  superiority  of  a  race  is  always  guar- 
anteed by  broader  and  more  stable  classes  of  the  people 
than  those  which  represent  intellect  and  culture.  For 
this  reason  the  well-known  antithesis  which  exists  be- 
tween mental  and  physical  productivity  can  in  no  wise 
furnish  an  excuse  for  excluding  women  of  this  class 
from  participation  in  the  intellectual  interests  which 
distinguish  their  men.  But  the  fear  that  women  devot- 
ing themselves  to  intellectual  work  will  entirely  lose 
their  predisposition  for  child-bearing  is  quite  stupid  and 
unnecessary.  On  the  contrary,  motherhood  furnishes  a 
guaranty  that  the  intellectualism  of  women  will  never 
plunge  them  into  that  ill-balanced  relationship  with  the 
natural  and  elemental  things  of  life  so  frequently  to  be 
observed  among  men  of  intellect.  Nature  has  implanted 
the  maternal  instinct  so  deeply  that  it  is  not  easily  to  be 
uprooted  at  the  option  of  any  individual — more  than 
that,  she  has  surrounded  the  quality  of  motherhood  with 
so  lofty  a  sanctity  that  every  female  heart  not  utterly 
withered  away  is  irresistibly  attracted  by  it. 

When,  in  spite  of  all  this,  individual  women  volun- 
tarily surrender  motherhood  for  the  sake  of  devoting 
themselves  to  some  intellectual  aim  in  life,  there  should 
be  excellent  reasons  for  regarding  this  as  due  to  an 
heroic  feminine  sentiment.  In  the  struggle  of  a  per- 
sonality against  tradition  in  order  to  give  play  to  the 
higher  motives  of  the  will  of  that  personality — a  will 
which  in  tragic  instances  is  not  dismayed  even  by  death 
— there  lies  a  wholly  heroic  element,  and  only  the  dullest 
utilitarianism  would  presume,  when  estimating  the 
social  value  of  the  individual  woman,  to  ignore  those 


Motherhood  and  Culture  6i 

equivalents  which  she  offers  to  mankind  for  her  renun- 
ciation of  progeny. 

As  to  the  conception  of  degeneracy,  an  objective  view 
of  modern  feminine  problems  would  have  to  take  full 
cognisance  of  the  fact  that  degeneracy  and  development 
are  closely-knit  phenomena  not  easily  distinguishable 
among  themselves.  A  return  to  an  imaginary  condition 
of  primitive  nature,  stamping  as  a  futile  mistake  the 
whole  enormous  fabric  of  masculine  civilisation,  must, 
like  every  other  reversion  or  forcing-back,  present 
nothing  but  an  aspect  of  hopelessness.  The  only  means 
capable  of  combating  the  evils  which  have  arisen  out  of 
a  high  degree  of  civilisation,  must  be  sought  in  that 
civilisation  itself.  The  chief  problem  of  all  sociological 
endeavour  is  how  to  overcome  the  imperfections  of  the 
intermediate  stages  by  a  still  further  intensification  of 
civilisation.  It  is  in  this  sphere  that  we  behold  the 
changes  which  are  to  prepare  those  new  conditions  for 
woman  under  which  she  may  be  enabled  to  devote  her- 
self to  the  duties  of  a  higher  spiritual  life  without  resign- 
ing her  duties  as  an  elemental  being — conditions  which 
will  dower  her  with  that  highest  triumph  of  all  civilisa- 
tion— the  unhampered  self-predestination  of  the  indi- 
vidual. 

It  would  be  an  unreasonable  hope,  far  exceeding 
anything  one  might  demand  of  the  average  masculinity, 
to  expect  to  bring  about  these  changes  solely  through 
the  work  and  knowledge  of  men.  The  problem  of 
obtaining  a  different  position  for  women  in  the  social 
order  of  the  future  is  something  that  must  be  solved  by 
women  themselves.  It  is  that  which  forms  the  greatest 
social  mission  of  every  woman  who,  by  inclination  and 
activity,  has  risen  above  the  traditional  sphere  of  her 


62  A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

sex.  Under  the  forms  of  society  which  exist  to-day  a 
combination  of  maternity  and  intellectual  work  is 
possible  only  under  the  greatest  disadvantages.  New 
divergences  are  to  be  made — and  this  is  a  task  which 
can  be  fulfilled  only  by  those  women  who,  in  agreement 
with  the  constitution  of  their  souls,  need  not  subject 
themselves  to  the  leadership  of  men.  The  great  weak- 
ness of  modern  civilisation  with  regard  to  the  position 
it  has  assigned  to  woman  consists  in  the  very  fact  that 
it  is  the  result  of  man's  work,  created  by  man  for 
the  purposes  of  man,  and  thus  unadapted  to  the 
woman  as  an  individual.  Under  the  dominance 
of  such  one-sided  interests  it  could  not  well  be 
otherwise. 

The  typical  masculine,  like  the  typical  feminine,  both 
with  regard  to  the  family  and  to  society,  has  produced 
everything  that,  according  to  its  general  character,  it  was 
capable  of  producing.  It  is  a  fallacy  to  expect  that  in 
the  society  of  the  future  a  new  emancipation  will  arise 
out  of  that  specific  nature  of  woman  which  is  commonly 
conceived  as  the  sense  of  motherliness  raised  to  the  lofty 
degree  of  an  intuition  for  the  sake  of  the  common  good. 
This  motherliness  of  the  specifically  feminine  soul  can, 
according  to  the  limitations  of  its  nature,  by  no  means 
devote  itself  to  the  interests  of  the  common  good,  for 
its  greatest  power  lies  in  its  concentration  upon  its  own 
progeny.  The  blind  instinct  with  which  every  woman 
prefers  and  exalts  her  own  offspring  is  something  that 
is  teleologically  inevitable. 

The  social  sense — that  faculty  which,  to  use  Christian 
terminology,  is  called  the  love  of  one's  fellow-man — 
demands  a  higher  differentiation  of  the  individual  than 
is  possible  with  the  instinct  of  maternity — otherwise  this 


Motherhood  and  Culture  63 

sense  would  not  have  first  manifested  itself  as  a 
peculiarity  of  the  male  sex. 

Changes  in  the  social  order  can  be  brought  about 
only  through  such  women  as  have  been  freed  of  the 
teleological  limitations  of  the  sex,  who  vary  from  the 
prevailing  type,  and  who,  through  the  force  of  their 
independence,  attain  to  a  new  conception  of  life.  Such 
women,  if  you  choose,  are  the  *'  unwomanly  "  ones — no 
doubt  less  useful  for  man  and  the  elemental  sex  purpose, 
and  yet  indispensable  factors  of  the  advancing  processes 
of  civilisation. 

The  general  mass  of  women  should,  however,  be  wise 
enough  to  overlook  all  opposite  traits,  and  not  refuse 
to  recognise  the  community  of  interests  represented  by 
the  advanced  woman,  for  the  triumphs  which  the  latter 
will  achieve  will  in  the  future  order  of  things  also 
redound  to  the  benefit  of  the  former. 

APPENDIX : 

ON   THE   TRAINING   OF   THE   CHILD 

There  is  a  prevailing  tendency  to  regard  the  training 
of  the  young  as  a  special  function  of  the  mother — the 
father's  share  in  the  matter  being  forced  considerably 
into  the  background;  in  fact,  so  much  so  that  it  might 
almost  appear  as  if  woman,  by  means  of  her  physical  and 
ethical  achievements,  were  endeavouring  in  this  direc- 
tion to  obtain  a  matriarchal  power  over  posterity.  It 
might  therefore  seem  that  the  training  of  children,  repre- 
senting a  far  more  permanent,  intensive,  and  compre- 
hensive demand  upon  the  feminine  personality  than  the 
physical  duty  of  motherhood,  would  bind  women  for  the 
greater  part  of  their  lives  so  closely  to  their  families  that 


64  A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

devotion  to  any  other  profession  in  conjunction  with  this 
maternal  duty  would  be  absolutely  precluded.  But  the 
experiences  of  everyday  life,  prove,  nevertheless,  that 
there  are  women  who,  in  addition  to  a  large  flock  of 
children,  find  time  and  interest  for  many  other  personal 
activities — and  also  others  whose  attention  is  so  ab- 
sorbed by  the  care  of  a  single  child  that  they  are  lost  to 
the  rest  of  the  world — from  which  it  may  be  seen  that 
here,  too,  the  individual  tendency  operates  as  the  decid- 
ing factor.  And  yet  stronger  and  stronger  grows  the 
tendency  to  consider  the  problem  of  child-training  as 
of  such  pre-eminent  importance  that  its  social  value 
exceeds  that  of  all  other  human  endeavours. 

The  most  perfect  expression  of  these  ideas  is  to  be 
found  in  the  works  of  Ellen  Key  :  "•  The  greatest  facul- 
ties are  necessary  to  do  justice  to  even  a  single  child. 
That  does  not  mean,  to  be  sure,  that  one  must  devote 
one's  entire  time  to  the  child.  But  it  means  that  our 
souls  must  be  possessed  by  the  child — just  as  the 
scientist  is  possessed  by  his  researches  and  the  artist  by 
his  creations";  for  the  lofty  task  must  be  this,  "to 
train  the  new  race  which  will  some  day  form  a  com- 
munity of  men  in  which  the  perfected  human  being — 
the  *  Superman  ' — will  be  revealed  in  the  rosy  dawn  of 
a  still  distant  day."     (77?^  Century  of  the  Child.) 

Here  we  have  a  combination  of  two  modern  ideas 
which  in  their  essence  are  diametrically  opposed  and 
irreconcilable,  the  one  being  a  presentation  of  the  deci- 
sive influence  of  education  in  the  life  of  the  individual, 
and  the  other  that  of  a  new  and  higher  race,  that  of  the 
"  superman." 

Nietzsche,  the  father  of  the  modern  superman,  left 
— no  doubt   intentionally — the   outlines   of  this  figure 


Motherhood  and  Culture  65 

rather  vague,  but  inasmuch  as  he  declares  in  a  certain 
passage  that  the  goal  of  all  development  must  be  sought 
in  "  the  sovereign  individual,  who  alone  resembles  him- 
self," one  must  assume  that  by  this  he  meant  a  man  who 
derives  the  impulses  of  his  acts  from  himself,  and,  inde- 
pendent of  the  influences  of  his  environment,  develops 
himself  into  a  self-governing  personality — a  man  who 
is  his  own  creation. 

To  individualities  of  such  tendencies  education  has 
but  little  to  offer.  In  order  that  a  man  might  grow  to 
be  entirely  himself,  he  must  first  of  all  completely  con- 
quer the  influences  of  his  environment  and  his  educa- 
tion. He  must  overcome  the  best  as  well  as  the  worst 
influences — unless  a  good  education  is  to  mean  nothing 
more  than  good  breeding — an  automatic  command  of 
external  forms. 

And  what  more,  indeed,  should  one  expect  of  the 
training  of  the  young.''  Even  the  commonly  accepted 
formula  that  such  training  should  develop  good  ten- 
dencies, and  obliterate  the  bad,  is  totally  inadequate. 
Bearing  in  mind  the  uncertainty  with  which  one  must 
regard  what  is  good  and  what  evil  in  the  constitution  of 
a  human  soul — for  every  person  must  possess  the  faults 
of  his  merits,  regarding  these  quite  apart  from  customary 
moral  values — it  is  only  too  probable  that  a  pedagogic 
choice  between  the  good  and  the  bad  would  not  always 
separate  the  wheat  from  the  chaff.  In  addition  to  this, 
every  system  of  education  which  aspires  to  be  something 
more  than  a  mere  education  of  outward  forms,  must 
assume  that  there  exists  a  wide  and  intuitive  sympathy 
on  the  part  of  the  instructors  towards  the  instructed,  and 
such  an  intuition  is  to  be  found  only  in  a  superior 
personality.     Those  parents  who  would  attain  to  such 

F 


66         A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

an  intuitive  understanding  of  their  children  must  not  be 
possessed  of  offspring  who  would  rise  above  them  in  the 
matter  of  intellect.  It  would  be  impossible  for  such 
children  to  be  *'  new  men  or  women,"  for  how  would 
ordinary  human  beings  be  able  to  train  the  extra- 
ordinary? According  to  all  probabilities,  ordinary 
parents  would  produce  ordinary  children.  When  human 
beings  of  the  average  sort  intermarry,  then  it  might 
safely  be  foretold  that  the  children  of  such  a  union  will 
also  be  average  human  beings,  despite  all  strenuous  at- 
tempts at  training.  Should  it,  however,  by  chance  occur 
that  a  wonderful,  unconjectured  stranger,  a  genius, 
should  make  his  appearance  among  them,  then  the  best 
thing  his  progenitors  can  do  is  to  let  him  go  his  own 
ways,  without  oppressing  him  with  their  pedagogic  arts. 

Considered  in  an  active  sense,  education  may  be  held 
to  be  the  expression  of  a  sort  of  being — that  is,  one 
educates  with  what  one  is,  rather  than  with  what  one 
knows.  No  pedagogic  knowledge,  nor  intention,  how- 
ever great,  will  make  a  good  instructor  out  of  an  unsuit- 
able personality.  The  stipulation  that  we  must  first 
train  ourselves  ere  we  can  train  others  offers  no  solution 
for  this  difficulty.  For  this  presupposes  a  distinct 
faculty  which  is  not  possessed  by  everyone,  namely,  the 
faculty  of  educating  oneself.  And  if  it  is  at  all  possible 
to  educate  oneself,  then  the  parents  might  as  well  leave 
this  to  the  children  themselves.  Is  not  that  man  who  has 
been  able  to  educate  himself  to  be  considered  superior 
to  him  who  has  permitted  this  to  be  performed  for  him 
by  others.'' 

At  the  most  it  might  be  said  that  the  average  human 
being  will  always  be  subject  to  such  training,  good  or 
bad,  and  especially  those  feeble  individuals  who,  in- 


Motherhood  and  Culture  67 

capable  of  standing  alone,  succumb  most  easily  to  the 
suggestive  influences  of  the  prevailing  norm.  The  use, 
significance,  and  purpose  of  education  can  therefore 
never  be  identified  with  the  creation  of  a  "  new  "  race, 
nor  even  of  the  "  superman,"  but  must  merely  serve  as 
protection  and  guidance  for  the  less  capable  and  resistant 
elements. 

But  even  with  regard  to  these,  the  old  parallel  which 
compares  the  training  of  a  child  with  the  creation  of  a 
work  will  no  longer  hold  good.  Women  are  particularly 
fond  of  consoling  themselves  for  their  lack  of  partici- 
pation in  intellectual  things — a  lack  imposed  upon  them 
by  motherhood — by  having  recourse  to  this  comparison. 
It  is  the  old  cry  :  women  themselves  should  be  nothing 
and  do  nothing,  but  should  rather  endeavour  to  foster 
or  create  in  their  sons  that  which  they  themselves  are 
denied  the  right  of  being. 

Among  all  the  false,  rudimentary  ideas  in  which  the 
ethics  of  the  bourgeoisie  are  so  fertile,  there  could 
scarcely  be  found  another  so  pernicious  as  this.  For  it 
is  just  this  which  leads  to  those  abuses  of  a  pedagogy 
conscious  of  its  goal,  and  notoriously  evil  in  its  effects, 
and  it  prepares  the  bitterest  disappointments  for  the 
naive  souls  of  those  women  who  build  their  life-work 
upon  it.  Despite  all  the  arts  of  education — who,  indeed, 
can  doubt  it."^ — a  man  remains  what  he  was  born;  a  tiny 
ego  will  not  grow  into  a  greater  even  under  the  stimulus 
of  the  most  fervent  motherly  self-sacrifice,  nor  an  or- 
dinary intelligence  become  a  genius.  The  woman  who 
omits  to  develop  any  special  talent  of  her  own  because  of 
her  belief  that  it  is  possible  for  her  to  "  develop  "  it  in 
her  son,  will,  in  ninety-nine  cases  out  of  a  hundred,  be 
grievously  cheated  of  the  fruits  of  her  life.     Why  not 

F    2 


68  A   Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

live  your  own  lives,  dear  mothers,  and  thereby  spare 
your  children  all  these  immense  burdens  of  hopes 
and  wishes  which  they  must  bear  with  them  under  the 
supposition  that  their  duty  in  life  is  to  please  you  and 
not  themselves! 

It  is  rather  the  exception  than  the  rule  to  find  children 
so  similar  to  the  parents  that  a  full  understanding  is 
possible  between  them.  Every  generation  develops 
itself  in  certain  opposite  ways  to  the  one  preceding  it; 
the  parent-generation  uses  up  the  spiritual  possessions 
whose  bearer  it  had  been,  the  child-generation  must 
create  new  ones  for  itself.  In  that  consists  its  spiritual 
life-function,  and  should  it  limit  itself  to  retaining  the 
ideals  of  good  education  which  have  been  delivered  to 
it,  it  would  give  away  its  most  precious  privilege. 

Biologically,  too,  the  child  is  but  seldom  a  continua- 
tion or  image  of  its  parents.  Biological  development, 
like  that  of  civilisation  itself,  does  not  progress  in  a 
straight  line.  The  mother  and  father  are  mere  inter- 
mediate members — the  child  itself  comes  from  a  far 
greater  distance;  it  is,  at  least,  in  an  equal  degree  the 
child  of  unknown  ancestors  as  that  of  the  two  individuals 
who  have  come  together  for  its  begetting. 

The  belief  of  parents  that  they  themselves  may  live 
again  in  their  children  belongs  to  those  illusions  by 
means  of  which  nature  renders  the  demands  she  makes 
in  behalf  of  propagation  agreeable  to  the  individual 
consciousness.  Even  though  the  mere  generative  life 
be  accompanied  by  such  deceptive  phenomena,  the 
realm  of  reason,  at  least,  ought  to  remain  free  of  them. 
But  a  similar  misleading  illusion  arises  even  here 
through  the  notion  that  the  child  is  the  "  work  "  of  its 
parents,  especially  of  the  mother  who  trains  it.     Who- 


Motherhood  and  Culture  69 

ever  regards  motherhood  as  the  equivalent  of  intellectual 
productivity,  overlooks  the  fact  that  a  work  is  the 
achievement  of  a  personality,  but  not  so  a  child.  There 
is,  to  be  sure,  a  certain  idea  common  to  both  cases,  by 
means  of  which  the  individual  justifies  to  himself  all  the 
great  personal  efforts  and  sacrifices  which  he  has  made 
for  the  sake  of  his  work.  Such  is  the  idea  of  living 
again  in  after  ages,  of  stretching  his  own  destiny  over  a 
period  of  time  that  is  immeasurably  prolonged.  But  any 
farther  comparison  between  the  two  is  possible  only 
through  an  erroneous  interpretation  of  the  function  of 
education. 

The  relation  of  the  parents  to  the  children,  when 
based  merely  upon  the  generative  life,  is  in  the  highest 
degree  irrational.  Should  one  attempt  to  explain  and 
justify  it  by  means  of  the  reason,  that  would  be  possible 
only  from  a  primitive-natural  point  of  view — that  is  to 
say,  from  the  position  which  man  occupies  as  a  mere 
elemental  being.  The  idea  of  personality,  with  all  the 
complexity  of  feelings  and  strivings  which  are  part  of 
it,  could  not  be  utilised  for  this  purpose.  In  the  same 
degree  in  which  woman  is  a  personality,  will  she  make 
demands  outside  pf  her  maternal  sphere  for  an  in- 
dependent participation  in  the  matters  of  life.  The 
conflict  with  her  duties  as  an  elemental  being  which 
thereupon  ensues  cannot  be  disposed  of  by  a  deliberate 
confusion  of  the  elements  of  personality  with  those  of 
the  species. 

This  confusion  will  occur  but  seldom  in  the  case  of 
a  man,  even  though  the  primitive  male,  whose  life-work 
consists  in  the  preservation  of  a  very  numerous  progeny, 
must  certainly  be  conceived  as  being  burdened  more 
heavily   by   the   demands  of   the   species   than,  say,  a 


70  A  Survey  of  the  Womati   Problem 

wealthy  lady  who  has  merely  to  bring  up  two  or  three 
children.     Let  it  be  assumed,  however,  that  this  con- 
fusion is  in  the  nature  of  an  intellectual  license  in  favour 
of  the  highest  conceivable  development  of  the  sense  of 
maternity — there  could  be,  nevertheless,  nothing  more 
dangerous  for  the  freedom   of  the   children  and   their 
personal  development  than  the  tendency  of  a  mother 
to  regard  her  offspring  as  her  work,  and  to  consider 
their  bringing-up  as  the  one  single  duty  of  her  life. 
This  inclination  to  drive  motherhood  to  excess  is  fre- 
quently a  source  of  danger  for  the  growing  children, 
especially  in  the  life  of  large  modern  cities,  where  house- 
hold duties  make  such  slight  demands  on  women.    And 
this  is  still  more  pertinent  when  we  remember  that  the 
small   families   of   to-day    are  not   regulated    as    were 
formerly  the  large  families,  in  which  the  great  number 
of  children  made  necessary  a  division  of  the  maternal 
duties  among  so  many  persons  that  any  single  child  was 
safe  from  being  disturbed  and  burdened  with  an  exces- 
sive number  of  rules  for  its  bringing-up.    The  incessant 
guarding,    spoiling,    and  coddling    practised    by    those 
mothers  whose  one  occupation  consists  of  training  the 
young,  and  who  are  inspired  by  the  proud  ambition  to 
leave  a  perfected  "  work  "  to  posterity  in  the  shape  of 
their  child,  merely  create  useless  beings,  who  must  first 
undergo  a  stern  discipline  in  life  beyond  the  maternal- 
domestic  sphere  ere  they  are  able  to  rid  themselves  of 
the  consequences  of  the  training  they  have  undergone. 
And,  then,  ought  we  not  also  to  put  the  question  : 
What  adult  person  really  cares  to  be  considered  as  the 
product  of  the  training  he  has  received }     This  thought 
is  not  likely  to  make  any  person  particularly  elate.     Nor 
is  it  calculated  to  arouse  the  gratitude  of  children;  on 
the  contrary,  all  too  easily  it  inspires  the  children  with 


Motherhood  and  Culture  71 

a  tendency  to  hold  their  parents  to  account  for  all  that 
life  has  withheld  from  them,  and  even  for  their  per- 
sonal shortcomings.  Gratitude  towards  parents  can 
really  be  maintained  only  under  the  supposition  that 
each  man  is  the  result  of  his  own  endeavours,  and  that 
he  owes  his  parents  some  recompense  for  the  pain  and 
trouble  he  has  caused  them.  For,  in  reality,  they  served 
only  as  the  means  of  which  he  availed  himself  in  order 
to  attain  to  his  own  existence — an  idea  which  Schopen- 
hauer has  carried  out  in  a  philosophically-phantastic 
manner  in  his  Metaphysics  of  Love.  But  apart  from 
all  metaphysical  backgrounds,  and  judged  purely  with 
regard  to  the  species,  parents  are  to  be  considered  as 
intermediary  links — as  the  soil  in  which  the  new  human 
being  is  to  grow  as  a  work  of  nature.  Were  it  in  any 
sense  true  that  a  man  is  the  work  of  his  parents,  we 
would  certainly  have  so  great  a  cause  for  dissatisfaction 
with  the  bungling  processes  to  which  we  have  been 
subjected,  that  feelings  of  gratitude  would  never  arise. 
Again,  no  thinking  and  conscientious  man  would, 
under  a  supposition  such  as  this,  venture  to  bring  a 
new  being  into  the  world  and  endeavour  to  educate  it. 
To  insist  upon  the  responsibility  towards  one's  own 
descendants  as  being  a  personal  obligation  might  serve 
the  purpose  of  inducing  sick  persons,  or  those  afflicted 
with  hereditary  or  acquired  defects,  to  resign  their  hopes 
of  possessing  progeny.  Nevertheless,  considering  the 
vast  spread  of  inherited  deficiencies  and  evils,  and  the 
uncertainty  that  attends  all  the  regulative  forces  that 
operate  against  heredity — forces  in  which  lies  the  entire 
vitality  of  a  race — even  this  appears  questionable. 
Rather  than  afflict  the  consciousness  of  civilised  man 
with  so  deep  a  burden  of  pessimism,  all  social  endeavour 
ought  to  be  bent  toward  first  abolishing  the  evils  under 


72  A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

which  the  individual  sinks,  and  then  to  destroying  the 
influences  which  in  the  shape  of  social  conditions  tend 
to  foster  degeneration. 

And  here,  too,  we  touch  upon  the  problem  of  train- 
ing the  child.  Far  more  decisively  than  the  most  com- 
prehensive provisions  of  an  individualistic  training,  do 
the  external  conditions  of  life  operate  upon  the  young 
man.  But  this  truth,  so  unpleasant  to  contemplate,  is 
the  very  one  which  mothers  most  stubbornly  refuse  to 
accept.  Otherwise  every  woman  who  has  the  destiny 
of  her  children  seriously  at  heart  would  despair  at  the 
helplessness  in  which,  for  instance,  she  stands  in  relation 
to  her  fifteen-,  sixteen-year-old  sons  as  soon  as  the 
world,  in  the  abominable  shape  which  sexual  things  have 
assumed  under  the  dominance  of  men,  begins  to  absorb 
them.  Could  only  those  women  who  persist  in  holding 
fast  to  the  old  standard  of  motherhood  learn  to  know 
that  they  need  not  yet  for  a  considerable  time  abandon 
this  standard  in  order  to  feel  that  it  is  their  duty  to 
take  part  in  social  work. 

But  when  one  observes  the  indifference  and  stupidity 
with  which  women  who  dedicate  their  entire  lives  to 
the  cause  of  education,  overlook  the  conditions  into 
which  their  male  children  are  plunged  when  scarcely 
full-grown,  then  one  is  moved  to  ask  whether  the  entire 
chauvinism  of  education  does  not  merely  serve  as  an 
excuse  for  glossing  over  the  lives  of  women  with  an 
appearance  of  more  worth  and  substance  than  they 
really  deserve  at  the  present  stage  of  civilisation. 

It  might,  of  course,  seem  that  we  are  moving  in  a 
circle  when  we  ignore  the  influences  of  education  in 
order  to  devote  our  entire  energies  to  the  conditions  of 
social  life.  A  new  order  of  things  can  be  created  only 
by  people  who,  because  they  are  possessed  of  other  needs 


Motherhood  and  Culture  73 

and  sentiments,  find  the  old  order  unendurable.  Is  it, 
therefore,  not  absolutely  indispensable  to  implant  these 
needs  and  sentiments  in  their  souls  from  their  earliest 
years  on  ?  But  whoever  would  aspire  to  implant  any- 
thing new  must  first  of  all  prove  himself  to  be  re- 
generated. And  with  this  we  arrive  once  more  at  the 
startine;-point :  regenerated  human  beings  are  born,  not 
bred;  they  are  a  work  of  nature,  and  not  of  their 
parents. 

Every  age  has  its  peculiar  superstitions.  The  super- 
stition with  respect  to  the  power  and  influence  of 
education  is  quite  particularly  the  superstition  of  an 
age  whose  knowledge  of  the  meaning  of  the  world 
reaches  its  extreme  height  in  the  concept  of  evolution. 
An  everlasting  becoming  without  a  consummated 
being,  a  future  which  constantly  converts  itself  into  an 
empty  present,  can  never  satisfy  the  human  longing  to 
know  the  meaning  and  purpose  of  life.  If  life  really 
unrolls  itself  as  an  eternal  alternation  of  the  generations 
of  which  the  individuals  are  only  mere  transitory  links 
without  an  individual  content,  then  the  prospects  for 
an  unlimited  development  become  as  naught.  That 
which  is  can  never  mean  less  than  that  which  is  to  be. 
This  axiom  is  a  valid  one  for  man — should  it  not  also 
properly  serve  for  woman.?  To  sink  their  entire  per- 
sonality in  motherhood,  or  in  the  training  of  the  young, 
as  some  would  like  to  prescribe,  even  for  those  women 
who  are  capable  of  other  things,  is  to  sacrifice  the  certain 
to  the  possible,  the  thing  that  is  to  the  thing  that  might 
be.  With  an  expansion  of  mother-love  such  as  this, 
one  undertakes,  to  quote  the  words  of  Malwida  von 
Meysenbug,  "  the  sacrifice  of  oneself;  that  is  to  say,  the 
sacrifice  of  that  which  no  one  is  permitted  to  sacrifice." 


THE   TYRANNY    OF    THE    NORM 

It  is  undeniable  that  there  are  many  women  who  go 
far  beyond  the  feminine  average  in  regard  to  intellect 
and  strength  of  character,  and  many  who  are  well 
qualified  for  careers  and  occupations  other  than  those 
customary  to  the  sex.  There  are  many — but  are  there 
enouo^h  ? 

It  is  possible  that  the  woman  thus  exceptionally 
endowed  might  be  found  to  be  so  rare  a  phenomenon 
as  to  count  for  very  little  in  the  economy  of  society. 
It  is  possible  that  she  might  be  discounted  as  merely  a 
transient  exception,  without  influence  upon  the  institu- 
tions of  the  social  commonwealth.  At  all  periods  of  the 
world's  history  there  have  been  women  who  have 
equalled  or  even  excelled  the  majority  of  men  in  intelli- 
gence and  in  energy;  yet  they  have  not  been  able  to 
alter  the  social  position  of  their  sex  either  in  the  matter 
of  the  law  or  in  regard  to  standards  of  opinion.  They 
have  been  exceptions  and  have  been  treated  as  such. 
They  were  exceptions — that  is  to  say,  they  were  not 
specimens  of  a  new  line  of  development ;  they  were  not 
pioneers  opening  out  new  routes  for  a  future  generation 
to  follow  and  develop;  they  had  no  successors. 

Therein  lies  the  difference  between  the  isolated 
feminine    individualities    of    earlier    epochs    and    the 


The   Tyranny  of  the  Norm  75 

leaders  of  the  modern  woman's  movement.  The  latter 
are  not  satisfied  to  be  what  they  are  and  to  enjoy  alone 
the  positions  which  in  all  circumstances  may  be  con- 
quered by  powerful  personalities.  They  seek  to  adapt 
existing  social  conditions  to  their  nature  and  needs,  and 
to  transform  the  prevailing  idea  of  what  women  should 
be  in  the  interests  of  those  women  who  vary  from  the 
norm — the  accepted  type. 

In  this  consists  the  great  importance  of  the  woman's 
movement — its  claim  to  be  regarded  as  a  social  reforma- 
tion. But,  so  far  as  lasting  results  are  concerned,  its 
efficiency  will  be  dependent  upon  the  degree  to  which 
the  sex  in  general  can  be  won  over  to  it.  All  social 
forms,  habits,  customs,  traditions,  may  be  traced  back  to 
a  majority;  and  standards  of  opinion,  accepted  views  of 
life,  are  but  indices  to  the  average  type  represented  by 
humanity  of  a  certain  epoch.  By  means  of  these  the  ex- 
ceptional individual  finds  his  exceptional  needs  opposed 
to  those  of  the  majority.  In  so  far  as  he  differs  from  his 
fellows,  he  must  either  oppose  his  will  to  theirs  or  else, 
if  his  personality  be  not  strong  enough  for  that,  subor- 
dinate himself  to  them,  however  unwillingly. 

This  battle  between  the  normal  majority  and  the 
individual  deviating  from  the  norm  and  striving  to  break 
down  its  tyranny,  goes  deep  down  into  the  constitution 
of  society;  and  the  process  involved  is  nothing  less  than 
the  organic  evolution  of  civilisation. 

It  is  possible  to  class  human  beings  in  two  opposed 
groups  according  to  their  intellectual  tendencies — a 
broad  classification,  of  course,  in  which  the  gradations 
are  ignored.  They  correspond  with  the  tendencies  to 
conserve  and  to  renew,  which,  according  to  the  Dar- 
winian theory,  are  the  determining  forces  in  the  evolu- 


76  A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

tion  of  species.  The  great  psychologist  Maudsley  has 
compared  them  with  the  fundamental  cosmic  laws  of  the 
universe.  Human  thought,  he  tells  us,  is  ruled  as  much 
by  antagonistic  forces  as  is  the  course  of  the  planets. 
A  centrifugal  or  revolutionary  force  gives  the  expansive 
impulse  to  new  ideas,  while  a  centripetal  or  conservative 
force  tends  to  keep  them  from  changing;  and  the 
resultant  from  these  two  opposing  forces  is  the  direction 
in  which  intellectual  evolution  progresses. 

The  stationary  element  in  intellectual  life  is  repre- 
sented by  that  majority  which  looks  upon  inherited 
standards  as  irrevocable,  upon  the  old  truths  as  sacred 
and  eternal,  whether  regarded  as  divine  ordinances  or 
as  the  expression  of  an  accepted  code  of  morality  to 
which  all  must  conform.  ' 

The  moving  element,  the  element  of  change  and 
development,  is,  however,  represented  by  single  and 
exceptional  individualities.  Individuality  is  the  source 
whence  spring  all  the  new  forms  of  knowledge,  all  the 
new  needs,  all  the  new  possibilities  of  existence.  It  is 
in  this  that  Nature  manifests  herself  most  fully  and 
clearly,  for  here  its  original  essence  is  not  effaced  or 
disguised  by  external  rules,  such  as  those  of  custom, 
tradition  and  the  conception  of  duty.  To  bring  this 
original  essence  into  action  as  a  living  force  in  conflict 
with  tradition,  to  shatter  and  reconstruct  atrophied  forms 
of  life  through  the  force  of  a  revolutionary  movement — 
that  must  constitute  its  mission  in  the  social  common- 
wealth. 

Human  beings  of  the  centrifugal  or  progressive  order 
of  mind  envisage  life  differently  from  those  of  conserva- 
tive temperament.  The  thought  that  they  are  pioneers, 
that  they  have  set  foot  in  the  unknown,  that  they  have 


The   Tyranny  of  the  Norm  jj 

risks  and  perils  to  cope  with,  affords  them  the  same 
moral  satisfaction  that  the  man  of  conservative  tempera- 
ment derives  from  behaving  correctly  and  carrying  out 
the  duties  prescribed  for  him.  They  will  have  nothing 
to  do  with  external  rules,  they  will  not  obey  the  tradi- 
tional code  of  laws,  but  will  listen  only  to  the  behests 
of  their  own  nature. 

The  destiny  of  such  innovators  varies  according  to 
the  force  of  their  personality,  irrespective  of  whatever 
field  of  intellectual  activity  to  which  they  may  belong. 
They  may  be  merely  ridiculed  or  ignored,  they  may 
be  misunderstood  or  persecuted,  their  end  may  be 
misery,  insanity,  or  a  martyr's  death.  Such  men  are  in 
truth  martyrs  in  the  cause  of  humanity.  To  them  we 
owe  every  forward  step  in  the  progress  of  the  race  from 
the  condition  of  beasts  up  to  the  noblest  and  loftiest 
civilisation.  And  when  a  people  ceases  to  produce  such 
individuals,  it  sinks  into  petrification  or  stagnancy;  its 
power  of  development  dies  away. 

Thus,  with  the  irresistible  force  of  a  natural  law,  this 
conflict  between  the  two  opposing  tendencies  is  eternally 
waged.  So  long  as  the  revolutionary  individual  stands 
alone,  he  is  outlawed;  it  is  only  when  he  acquires  a 
following,  an  adequate  number  of  sympathisers  and 
supporters,  that  accepted  ideas  begin  to  give  way  before 
him. 

In  the  intellectual  movement  of  the  nineteenth  century 
this  conflict  found  its  most  conspicuous  expression  in 
the  battle  over  what  was  styled  "  Free  Thought."  In 
Germany  the  opponents  of  "  Free  Thought,"  or  of 
"  Free  Spirits,"  came  to  be  styled  "  Philistines,"  a  term 
chiefly  familiar  until  then  as  applied  by  the  University 
student  to  those  whose  narrow,  bourgeois  views  and 


78  A   Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

habits  of  life  contrasted  with  his  own  joyous  and  un- 
restricted outlook.  Later  the  term  was  adopted  by 
prominent  thinkers  to  characterise  the  mob  that  showed 
itself  hostile  to  their  ideas.  Wagner  denounced  as 
Philistines  all  who  were  lacking  in  artistic  sensibihty. 
Schopenhauer  used  the  word  in  speaking  of  men  devoid 
of  spiritual  needs.  He  attributed  this  lack  to  "  the 
strict  and  closely  normal  measure  of  their  intellectual 
powers."  Lombroso  described  aversion  from  the  new 
as  "  Misoneismus,"  and  spoke  of  it  as  a  distinguishing 
characteristic  of  the  normal,  respectable  man.  He  held 
that  in  so  far  as  an  individual  being  was  progressive, 
so  far  is  he  removed  from  the  normal,  for  the  average 
measure  of  human  intelligence  is  not  sufficient  to  permit 
of  progress  beyond  the  accepted  type  nor  of  the  concep- 
tion of  new  ideas. 

Those  forces  which  in  Germany  were  called  Philistine 
have  taken  a  particularly  strong  stand  against  the 
feminist  movement.  And  this  not  merely  in  work-a- 
day  life.  In  no  department  of  literature  have  the 
uncritical  exponents  of  accepted  ideas  gone  more  widely 
astray  than  in  their  discussion  of  "  Woman."  Most 
of  their  theses  are  directed  rather  towards  setting  forth 
the  general  conditions  fitted  for  woman  and  recording 
the  recognised  spiritual  differences  between  the  sexes 
than  towards  allotting  due  scope  to  individuality.  Their 
aim  was  not  to  make  provision  for  all  the  endless 
varieties  of  individual  needs,  but  to  devise  a  formula 
according  to  which  the  needs  of  the  individual  should  be 
brought  into  harmony  with  her  sex  and  by  which  her 
position  in  society  should  be  clearly  fixed.  It  will  be 
observed  that  with  people  of  conservative  tendency  the 
need   of   accepted  standards   of   thought   and  conduct 


The   Tyranny  of  the  Norm  79 

is  greater  than  the  need  of  objective  perception;  and  it 
happens  only  too  often,  even  with  the  most  untram- 
melled minds,  that  they  do  not  distinguish  between 
their  personal  emotions  and  their  critical  judgment. 
Many  distinguished  men  whose  intellectual  bent  is 
altogether  in  the  direction  of  free  thought  are  reaction- 
aries in  regard  to  women.  The  reason  for  this  is  to  be 
found  in  the  constitution  of  a  certain  species  of  mascu- 
linity :  it  is  the  sexual  element  in  them  that  brings  about 
the  misuse  of  their  intellectual  faculties. 

The  progressive  individual,  in  the  case  of  a  woman, 
has  therefore  a  twofold  struggle  with  conformity :  she 
has  to  contend  with  the  accepted  type  which  the  ruling 
masculine  notion  has  set  up  for  womanhood,  and  also 
with  the  actual  predominating  womanly  type  which 
stands  for  the  average  of  the  sex  as  it  is  at  the  moment. 
She  is  appraised  not  according  to  her  own  characteristics, 
but  according  to  the  normal  characteristics  of  her  sex, 
and  not  even  as  they  really  are,  but  as  they  appear  on 
the  surface.  If  at  present  the  opposition  to  this  method 
of  generalisation  (to  which  the  individual  man  is  subject 
as  much  as  the  individual  woman)  happens  to  manifest 
itself  chiefly  among  the  female  sex,  it  is  not  to  be  attri- 
buted merely  to  the  fact  that  the  normative  type  among 
men  already  entitles  them  to  all  the  liberties  and  advan- 
tages of  their  class  in  the  State  and  society  of  to-day. 
This  type  may  be  compared  to  a  capacious  coat  of  mail, 
made  according  to  the  largest  size,  a  coat  most  uncom- 
fortable for  the  weaker  individuals,  though  it  may  not 
hinder  the  development  of  the  stronger  ones.  In  the 
case  of  the  woman  the  accepted  type  provides  far  less 
scope  for  the  evolution  of  individuality.  It  is  primitive 
in  its  workings,  like  a  strait-waistcoat,  which  the  indi- 


8o  A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

vidual  woman  must  burst  asunder  if  she  is  not  to  be 

stifled. 

A  very  widely  held  theory  regards  man  as  the  exem- 
plar of  the  progressive,  centrifugal  tendency,  and  woman 
as  stationary  and  centripetal.  This  accords  with  the 
conception  of  biologists  in  regard  to  the  male  sex  having 
an  individualistic,  revolutionary  bent,  individualising 
and  renovating  the  race,  and  the  female  sex  being  by 
nature  conservative  and  tending  to  the  conservation  of 
the  race.  It  is  indeed  one  of  the  most  widely  accepted 
of  all  established  ideas  that  "  woman  "  is  the  guardian 
of  customs,  the  champion  of  things  as  they  are,  irre- 
vocably wedded  to  tradition. 

But  it  ought  to  be  always  remembered  that  progres- 
siveness  is  characteristic  of  only  a  very  small  number  of 
men  and  by  no  means  of  the  majority  of  them;  while 
in  all  revolutionary  epochs  we  are  confronted  with  the 
names  of  women  who  played  their  parts,  however  diffi- 
cult it  was  for  members  of  their  sex  to  overcome  the 
traditional  barriers  in  their  way. 

The  classical  example  of  this  tendency  towards  pro- 
gress in  the  female  sex  is  offered  by  those  women  who 
first  introduced  the  feminist  movement.  For  over  a 
century  they  and  their  successors  had  to  be  content  to 
be  reckoned  as  degenerates.  They  were  generally 
regarded  as  perverted  types  not  to  be  ranked  among 
worthy  specimens  of  their  sex.  Indeed,  it  is  not  so 
long  since  they  were  spoken  of  as  "  men-women."  It 
was  not  possible  to  view  as  other  than  freaks  and  abnor- 
malities these  creatures  who  came  upsetting  established 
ideas  and  questioning  approved  tenets;  the  new  paths 
they  sought  to  make  for  themselves  could  be  held  to  be 
nothing  but  blind  alleys  down  which  the  sex  was  being 


The   Tyranny  of  the  Norm  8 1 

enticed  to  stray  from  its  natural  sphere  and  its  "  natural 
destiny."  Even  now  we  may  hear  the  voices  of  those 
who  persist  in  regarding  the  entire  feminist  movement 
as  a  symptom  of  degeneration. 

From  the  standpoint  of  the  conservative  tendency 
such  a  view  of  the  movement  is  justified,  though  from 
the  progressive  standpoint  it  is  regarded  as  something 
to  praise,  not  to  condemn.  How  any  such  manifestation 
is  to  strike  the  observer,  depends  entirely  upon  whether 
he  belongs  to  the  first  or  the  second  order  of  these  men. 

From  the  standpoint  of  free  intellectuality,  it  is  a 
reactionary  proceeding  to  make  out  a  table  of  spiritual 
differences  between  the  sexes  and  to  pin  one's  faith  to 
it  as  to  an  incontrovertible  dogma.  For  the  man  of 
untrammelled  mind,  such  a  standard  is  found  to  be 
at  fault  from  the  moment  when  superior  beings  who 
do  not  accord  with  it  make  their  appearance;  for  him 
there  are  only  certain  criteria  in  accordance  with  which 
everyone  may  select  an  individual  of  the  opposite  sex 
suited  to  him  and  his  kind,  and  suflBcient  in  herself. 
He  does  not  reckon  it  a  praiseworthy  thing  if  an 
individual  possesses  the  typical  qualities  of  his  or  her 
sex,  any  more  than  he  prides  himself  on  bearing  the 
stamp  of  his  social  position  or  his  professional  calling. 
It  is  the  essence  of  individuality  to  deviate  from  the 
typical  as  from  the  conventional.  Is  this  to  be  curbed 
by  conventional  ideas  in  regard  to  sex  attributes  ?  A 
general  rule  drawn  from  a  majority  of  cases  has  no 
value  as  applied  to  a  single  specimen;  it  can  certainly 
not  be  taken  as  a  criterion  by  which  to  classify  the 
possessor  of  an  exceptionally  developed  mind  as 
"  normal  "  or  ''  abnormal."  To  appraise  the  individu- 
ality thus  deviating  from  the  average,  one  should  not 

G 


82  A  Survey  of  the   Woman  F  rob  km 

take  up  the  viewpoint  of  tlie  existing  and  accepted  type; 
one  must  study  it  in  perspective  from  the  viewpoint  of 
the  evolution  of  the  species,  inseparable  both  in  its 
tendencies  to  conserve  and  to  renew.  The  evolution  of 
species  is  unceasing,  though  imperceptible;  every  new 
individuality  involves  new  possibilities  of  life.  Nature 
is  a  spendthrift  in  forms  of  life,  and  the  bountifulness 
that  produces  countless  variations  in  the  lower  forms  of 
life  reaches  its  apex  among  the  hio^her  races  of  mankind 
in  differences  of  personality. 

The  history  of  humanity  is  a  record  of  gradual  pro- 
gress towards  individual  freedom.  In  primitive  states 
of  society,  the  individual  is  generally  kept  in  submission 
to  the  interests  of  the  community;  but  the  higher  the 
social  organism,  the  richer  is  it  in  its  forms  of  life 
and  the  more  thorough  its  provision  for  the  freedom  of 
the  human  individual. 

Even  the  most  perfect  kind  of  freedom  would  have 
to  depend  upon  an  exact  balance  between  these  two 
opposing  forces  of  progressiveness  and  conservatism. 
To  sacrifice  the  individual  to  the  community  is  an  archaic 
course — to  hand  over  the  community  to  the  unfettered 
will  of  the  individual,  a  decadent  one.  The  conservative 
tendency  of  the  majority  affords  a  necessary  and  in- 
dispensable counterweight  to  the  progressive  tendency; 
without  this  it  would  be  as  impossible  for  the  social  life 
of  humanity  to  go  on  as  it  would  be  for  the  universe 
to  continue  in  existence  without  the  counteraction  of 
the  force  of  gravitation  to  the  rotation  of  the  spheres. 
Human  society  would  have  no  element  of  permanence 
and  stability  but  for  the  co-operation  of  the  centripetal 
order  of  mind.     In  times  when  the  centrifugal  order  of 


The   Tyranny  of  the  Norm  83 

mind  is  preponderant,  in  times  of  change  and  revolu- 
tion, human  affairs  assume  a  restless  insecure  aspect; 
all  accepted  ideas  are  questioned,  life  becomes  a  feverish 
succession  of  changes,  each  new  phase  vanishing  sud- 
denly and  completely.  Tradition  is  the  work  of  the 
conservative  majority;  and  it  is  to  tradition  that  every 
species  of  civilisation  must  look  for  the  solid  founda- 
tion, the  organic  principles,  which  are  essential  to  its 
unity  and  continuity. 

It  is  a  very  common  failing  in  men  of  progressive 
intellect  to  ignore  the  nature  of  the  ordinary  run  of 
mankind  in  their  campaign  for  freedom,  to  brand  them 
as  narrow-minded  and  to  overlook  entirely  their  duty 
in  the  social  order  of  life. 

The  contemptuous  term  of  "  Philistine  "  which  in 
Germany  is  applied  by  the  progressive  to  his  adversary 
is  expressive  of  the  fact  that  the  word  is  derived  from 
the  field  of  polemics.  Ought  not  the  free  spirit  to  be 
capable  of  playing  a  non-partisan  part  in  the  sphere  of 
intellectual  discussion  ?  Might  we  not  refrain  henceforth 
from  using  the  word  "  Philistine,"  substituting  in  its 
stead  the  expression  Normal  Thinker  ^ 

The  social  function  of  the  progressive  mind  has  its 
origin,  then,  in  its  relation  to  the  Normal  Thinker. 
Freedom  in  its  negative  sense,  freedom  from  rules  and 
regulations,  is  only  one  of  its  elements,  as  an  active  force 
it  creates  new  ideas,  whose  future  is  dependent  upon  the 
manner  in  which  they  are  accepted  and  elaborated  by 
others.  It  creates  new  "  ideals  " — that  is  to  say,  if  we 
avoid  the  terms  of  the  metaphysician— it  lays  down  new 
lines  along  which  the  evolution  of  the  race  shall  proceed. 

If  the  negative  part  of  freedom  separates  the  in- 
dividual from  the  social  community,  the  positive  part 

G   2 


84  A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

of  it  draws  him  all  the  more  closely  into  it.  In  so  far 
as  the  progressive  spirit  is  to  be  creative  in  regard  to 
morals  and  customs,  in  so  far  is  it  dependent  upon  a 
public — as  is  the  case  with  artistic  genius.  The  idea  of 
creating  new  modes  of  existence,  of  enacting  new  codes 
of  law,  has  always  been  the  stimulus  and  prerogative  of 
the  very  great  among  men  of  progressive  mind.  With 
these  aims  in  view,  they  probe  into  the  nature  of  their 
kind,  into  the  mysteries  concealed  behind  the  process 
of  evolution.  They  are  thus  the  first  to  bring  into 
shape  something  which  in  subsequent  generations  will 
have  become  common;  they  are  forerunners  of  others — 
the  heralds  of  Nature  that  the  species  is  still  alive,  still 
in  process  of  growth.  All  the  ideas  that  take  their  place 
as  accepted  truths  in  the  consciousness  of  society,  the 
entire  structure  of  moral  and  intellectual  values  and  all 
that  exercises  a  decisive  influence  in  the  lives  of  the 
majority,  were  originally  conceived  in  the  minds  of 
the  few.  Up  to  a  certain  point,  the  majority  takes  its 
shape  in  accordance  with  the  ideals  of  the  few.  But  for 
this  process  these  ideals  would  vanish  like  transient 
moods  and  fancies  with  the  individuals  in  whose  minds 
they  were  conceived. 

Of  course,  only  those  things  which  answer  to  the 
needs  and  faculties  of  the  majority  pass  into  the  general 
stock;  and  the  process  by  which,  when  changed  into 
the  normal,  they  become  common  property,  is  enacted 
upon  the  very  threshold  of  the  social  consciousness. 
It  is  a  noteworthy  failing  of  the  conservative  type  of 
mind  that  it  takes  no  account  of  the  genesis  of  the 
normal,  and  that  it  regards  it  as  something  fixed  instead 
of  as  it  really  is,  something  that  has  grown  and  is  still 
in  process  of  change.     The  binding  force  of  the  normal 


The   Tyranny  of  the  Norm  85 

lies  in  the  need  of  the  normal  thinker  to  cling  to  it  as 
to  an  infallible  law,  a  need  that  can  only  be  satisfied  by 
the  idea  that  he  is  hearkening  to  a  higher  will,  not  to  that 
of  a  few  individuals.  He  honours  in  the  normal  the  ex- 
pression of  the  will  of  society,  to  oppose  which  would 
mean  his  destruction,  since  he  could  not  in  himself  exist 
alone. 

If  the  conception  of  evolution,  with  reference  to 
human  society,  is  to  have  any  significance  at  all,  then 
a  progressive  raising  of  the  average  type  is  a  necessary 
hypothesis.  It  is,  however,  impossible  to  believe  that 
the  great  majority  could  ever,  in  the  course  of  develop- 
ment, progress  from  the  plane  of  accepted  standards  to 
that  of  untrammelled  intellectuality.  Assuming  the 
mental  productiveness,  a  free  spirit  is  inherent  like  any 
other  talent.  For  even  those  free  personalities  whose 
mental  significance  does  not  extend  beyond  their  own 
private  spheres  are  productive  in  so  far  as  that  the  intui- 
tions which  govern  their  actions  and  judgments  are 
evolved  from  within  themselves.  The  qualities,  there- 
fore, which  will  never  overflow  from  the  plane  of 
progressive  intellectuality  into  that  of  the  accepted 
standards,  which  can  never  become  "  normal,"  are  the 
fundamental  instincts  and  the  entire  mode  of  thought 
connected  with  them.  It  is  the  right  of  the  strong  to 
fashion  life  according  to  their  inclination,  but  this  cannot 
become  the  maxim  of  the  weak,  and  therefore  not  of  the 
majority. 

Nietzsche  refers  to  the  relation  between  the  progres- 
sive and  the  conservative  intellect  when  he  says  :  "  It 
would  be  altogether  unworthy  of  a  great  mind  to  see  an 
objection  in  mediocrity,  per  se.  Mediocrity  itself  is  the 
primary    cause    of    the    necessity    for    exceptions :     it 


86  A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

demands  a  higher  development."  And  he  indicates  the 
legislative  mission  of  the  master  mind  in  Zarathustra's 
words:  "Be  firm,  my  friends;  for  your  hand  shall  be 
laid  upon  thousands  of  years  " — whilst  Max  Stirner, 
so  closely  connected  with  him  in  thought,  has  carried 
the  war  against  all  mediocre  endeavours  to  their  final, 
logical  annihilation.  Max  Stirner's  work  is,  it  is  true, 
a  triumph  of  abstract  thought,  the  most  absolute  expres' 
sion  of  centrifugal  intellectuality,  but  it  is  ineffectual  so 
far  as  the  actual  conditions  of  human  social  life  are 
concerned. 

So  long  as  the  feminist  movement  was  entirely 
revolutionary,  women  were  right  in  directing  their 
energies  not  against  average  humanity  in  general,  but 
against  their  active  Philistine  opponents  in  particular. 
They  could  repulse  this  type  of  humanity,  and  regard 
it  as  their  enemy  so  far  as  feminine  problems  were 
concerned.  But  the  time  has  already  come  when  the 
revolutionary  has  passed  into  the  organised  state,  that 
is  to  say  when  the  movement  must  be  in  normal  rela- 
tion to  its  adherents.  Their  demands  are  beginning  to 
have  results.  The  equity  of  them  is  being  recognised, 
and  economic  conditions  are  rapidly  preparing  the  way 
for  their  realisation. 

Thus,  both  their  mission  and  their  perspective  are 
undergoing  change.  That  which  was  at  first  the  enthu- 
siastic dream  of  a  few,  arising  from  the  impulses  of 
strong  and  uncommon  women,  the  avowal  of  natures  far 
above  the  average,  is  now  becoming  the  common  pro- 
perty of  the  many;  it  is  to  form  the  new  norm  in 
accordance  with  which  the  life  of  this  majority  is  to 
be  adjusted.  For  it  stands  to  reason  that  among  these 
there  are  more  average  than  independent  spirits;  persons 


The    Tyranny  of  the  Norm  87 

who  cannot  rise  to  the  height  of  living  their  own  lives 
in  freedom  undisturbed  by  the  opinion  or  the  conduct 
of  the  society  to  which  they  belong.  They  wish  to 
understand  this  freedom  as  a  new  law,  as  a  new  and 
higher  morality  which  every  progressive  person  must 
profess. 

Will  the  doctrines  of  the  woman's  movement  justify 
this  claim }  Or  is  it  possible  that  their  essential  charac- 
teristics are  suited  only  to  exceptional  women .''  Must 
there  not  be  a  change  in  the  average  type  of  woman 
if  these  views  are  to  be  realised } 

But  why  should  not  such  a  change  be  possible  in 
this  case,  just  as  it  has  been  the  condition  and  the  result 
of  all  social  revolutions.^  Why  not,  indeed,  inasmuch 
as  it  is  contained  in  the  very  essence  of  development .'' 

The  demands  made  by  the  feminist  movement  on  the 
social  community  rest  on  the  assumption  that  the  greater 
part  of  the  female  sex  is  capable  of  being  raised  from 
a  state  of  dependence  to  an  independent  existence  as 
soon  as  the  pressure  of  outside  circumstances  ceases 
simultaneously  with  the  pressure  of  the  prevailing 
standards. 

It  is  characteristic  of  periods  of  transition  that  the 
number  of  revolutionary  persons  should  suddenly  in- 
crease— probably  because  the  pressure  of  prevailing 
standards  has  relaxed,  and  because  the  suggestive  fer- 
ment of  the  new  ideas  has  begun  to  spread.  All  those 
who  were  too  weak  to  revolt  or  to  assert  themselves, 
all  those  who  had  not  the  moral  strength  to  confess 
themselves  parts  of  a  declining  type,  reveal  themselves  at 
such  a  time,  and  gather  together  as  the  adherents  of 
those  who,  with  all  the  emphasis  of  a  strong  will  and  an 
unshakeable  conviction,  proclaim  to  the  world  that  which 


88  A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

the  weaker  members  can  express  only  in  faint  and  un- 
certain terms.  It  is  for  this  reason  that,  when  the  ideals 
of  life  are  changed,  a  new  type  of  humanity  comes  to 
the  front.  Nearly  every  generation,  in  fact,  has  its 
peculiar  mental  physiognomy  and  is  more  or  less  dis- 
tinguishable from  its  predecessors — this  is  proved  by 
the  well-known  and  ever-recurring  complaint  of  the  old 
people  about  the  peculiarities  of  youth.  The  progressive 
element,  moreover,  prevails  in  a  great  many  people  in 
their  youth,  although  later  on  their  minds  sink  back  into 
conservatism. 

A  remodelling  of  the  average  type  can  be  effected  by 
a  change  in  the  method  of  education — that  is,  by  means 
of  the  influences  to  which  any  individual  may  be  system- 
atically exposed  during  the  years  of  development;  also 
by  a  change  of  environment,  that  is  to  say,  by  means 
of  all  those  influences  which,  in  the  shape  of  external 
circumstances,  exert  their  distinct  pressure.  The 
economic  changes  which  are  so  important  in  determin- 
ing the  social  status  of  the  female  sex  are  very  potent 
factors  in  changing  the  average  type,  as  they  render  a 
number  of  qualities  useless  or  disadvantageous,  qualities 
which  were  formerly  advantageous  or  indispensable  to 
woman,  and  were  therefore  cultivated  with  all  the 
available  means  of  suggestion.  From  new  duties  new 
capacities  are  evolving.  Did  not  the  Englishman  Bury 
regard  the  possibility  that  women  would  develop  new 
characteristics  as  the  strongest  argument  in  favour  of 
woman  suffrage.''  "Such  a  possibility,"  he  wrote, 
"  has  not  arisen  for  nearly  two  thousand  years." 

It  is  true,  indeed,  that  if  "  woman  "  in  the  future 
must  be  independent^,  self-sufiicient,  strong-willed, 
energetic  and  the  like,   the  tyranny  of  the  norm  will 


The   Tyranny  of  the  Norm  89 

again  be  brought  to  bear,  with  all  the  self-deception 
and  hypocrisy  in  its  train  which  generally  arise  when 
superficial  standards  prevail. 

But  the  demands  of  the  feminist  movement  do  not 
imply  such  a  levelling-up,  even  supposing  that  the 
raising  of  the  average  were  too  optimistic  an  assump- 
tion. Its  very  nature  as  an  effort  towards  freedom,  the 
idea  of  free,  individual  self-government  which  is  its 
starting-point,  its  basis  and  its  distinctive  sign,  will 
always  make  it  a  question  for  the  minority.  In  the 
woman's  movement  the  female  minority  is  fighting  for 
a  normal  social  status;  and  why  should  not  a  highly 
developed  state  of  society,  furnished  with  all  the  means 
to  a  heightened  perception,  grant,  even  to  a  minority, 
the  position  to  which  it  is  entitled } 


ON     MASCULINITY 

The  true  origin  of  the  change  which  is  taking  place 
in  the  position  of  the  female  sex  will  never  be  rightly 
understood  so  long  as  the  change  in  the  conditions  of 
life  of  the  male  sex  remains  unconsidered.  The  two 
sexes  are  in  so  close  a  relation  with  one  another,  are 
so  dependent  on  one  another,  that  the  conditions  which 
affect  the  one  must  also  affect  the  other.  One  of  the 
most  important  factors  in  the  rise  of  the  feminist  move- 
ment is  probably  to  be  found  in  the  change  which  is 
taking  place  in  the  male  sex.  As  early  as  the  middle 
of  the  nineteenth  century  a  far-seeing  man  wrote : 
"  The  sex  vices  of  women  have  now  become  those  of 
men;  our  culture  is  predominatingly  romantic  and 
feminine,  educating  the  man  to  be  the  tender  mate  of 
the  woman,  not  the  woman  to  be  the  strong,  masculine 
companion  of  the  man.  Where  mannishness  cannot  be 
eradicated,  it  must  come  to  be  regarded  as  undesirable 
and  exceptional,  and  degenerate  into  sheer  brutality; 
and  inasmuch  as  men  have  become  women,  what  are 
women  to  do,  crowded  out  of  their  natural  sphere  by  this 
sexual  exodus.'*  .  .  .  What  remains  to  those  women 
who  either  are  unable  to  have  children  or  desire  none, 
but  to  conquer  the  field  which  men  have  deserted  in 

order  to  take  possession  of  that  domain  which  formerly 

90 


On  Masculinity  91 

belonged  to  them?"  (Otto  Ludwig,  Shakespeare- 
studien). 

And  Goethe  argues  from  the  same  standpoint  when 
he  says :  "  It  cannot  be  questioned  that  in  all  civilised 
nations  women  must  gain  predominance.  For  inter- 
acting influences  must  render  man  more  feminine,  and 
this  causes  him  to  suffer  a  loss;  for  his  advantage  con- 
sists not  in  moderated,  but  in  restricted  power.  If,  on 
the  other  hand,  woman  takes  something  from  man,  she 
gains;  for  if  she  can  increase  her  other  advantages  by 
sheer  energy,  the  result  is  a  being  than  whom  nothing 
more  perfect  can  be  imagined." 

The  significance  of  these  utterances  lies  not  so  much 
in  judgments  favourable  to  women,  as  in  the  confirma- 
tion of  the  fact  that  all  is  not  right  with  masculinity. 
The  majority  of  men  do  not  realise  this.  It  is  contrary 
to  the  naive  sexual  purblindness  of  the  average  man 
to  admit  that  there  is  a  difference  in  degree  of  mascu- 
linity between  him  and  men  of  other  periods.  He  clings 
to  that  measure  of  his  masculine  value  which  has  been 
suggested  to  him  from  his  childhood  on,  without  asking 
whether  this  measure  be  consistent  with  the  conditions 
and  influences  to  which  he  is  exposed  during  the  whole 
of  his  life. 

The  conception  of  masculinity  in  modern  society  rules 
like  an  ancient  idol  which  is  still  publicly  worshipped 
and  served  with  prescribed  sacrifices,  although  it  has 
long  ceased  to  work  miracles.  The  ideas  connected  with 
this  are  made  up  of  remnants  of  bygone  ages  and 
survivals  of  relationships.  It  may,  indeed,  be  asserted 
that  the  disparity  between  modern  conditions  of  life 
and  the  prevailing  standards  is  even  greater  with  the 
male  than  with  the  female  sex.    By  virtue  of  his  social 


92  A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

nature  the  individual  man  is  just  as  dependent  as  the 
woman;  in  so  far  as  he  belongs  to  the  average  he  is  just 
as  much  in  subjection  to  the  tyranny  of  the  norm  and 
feels  just  as  strongly  that  the  decrees  of  customs  and 
of  morals  are  his  lords  and  masters.  Only  the  decrees 
themselves  are  different. 

If  we  consider  the  conception  of  masculinity  as  it 
is  depicted  in  general  outlines  in  everyday  life,  or  in 
those  writings  which  have  need  of  a  normal  basis,  in 
pedagogic,  popular  medical,  didactic-moral  works,  we 
find  the  primitive,  teleological  sexual  type  handed  on 
from  generation  to  generation,  without  having  been  put 
to  the  test  of  the  actual  conditions  of  life.  In  this, 
masculinity  equals  activity  and  femininity  equals  pas- 
sivity. Everything  masculine  has  an  aggressive  bearing 
towards  the  outer  world;  everything  feminine  is  defen- 
sive; man  has  expansive  impulses  and  a  strong  will;  he 
is  enterprising,  eager  to  conquer,  warlike,  and  will  suffer 
no  restriction;  but  the  female  sex,  by  virtue  of  its  weak 
will,  is  subject  and  in  need  of  subjection,  timid,  peaceful, 
patient,  etc.,  etc. 

Even  though  these  sex  types  do  not  apply  absolutely 
to  all  so-called  primitive  peoples,  it  can  nevertheless  be 
said  that  the  lower  the  mode  of  life  the  more  distinct 
and  pure  are  the  types.  Only  with  those  peoples  whose 
lives  are  lived  out  on  a  plane  below  civilisation  is  there 
a  division  of  labour  in  accordance  with  this  division  of 
the  sexes.  There  the  tasks  and  occupations  of  the  man 
perfectly  express  the  tendencies  of  the  primitive  sexual 
character.  This  could  not  be  more  tersely  expressed  than 
in  the  words  of  the  Australian  Kurnai  whom  Ellis  quotes 
in  his  book  on  man  and  woman  :  "  A  man  hunts,  spears, 
fishes,  fights,  and  sits  about;   the  rest  is  all  woman's 


On  Masculinity  93 

work."  All  the  rest — namely,  work  in  the  real  sense 
of  the  word — agriculture  and  the  crafts. 

The  most  masculine  occupations  are  those  of  the 
savages;  the  most  masculine  man  is  the  savage,  as  he 
is  also  the  freest  and  most  unrestricted.  Only  when  a 
modification  has  taken  place  in  the  basic  instincts  of  his 
sexual  nature  is  man  capable  of  civilisation;  and  in  the 
very  first  stages  of  civilisation,  when  he  takes  over  part 
of  woman's  work,  man  sacrifices  something  of  the  ful- 
ness of  his  masculinity.  He  becomes  domestic,  fettered, 
dependent.  Civilisation  and  culture  bring  man  nearer 
to  woman;  they  render  him  effeminate;  they  are  anti- 
virile.  And  the  higher  and  more  refined  the  civilisation 
becomes,  the  stronger  are  its  anti-virile  influences.  As 
Havelock  Ellis  says,  savage  and  barbaric  peoples  are 
usually  warlike,  that  is  to  say,  masculine  in  character; 
the  industrial  pursuits  were  originally  woman's  pro- 
vince and  have  a  tendency  to  make  a  man  womanish. 
Civilisation  has  slowly  but  unceasingly  worked  to  bring 
about  a  change  in  masculinity  by  which  feminine  in- 
fluences are  gaining  more  and  more  predominance,  and 
the  warlike,  and  therefore,  in  a  restricted  sense,  mascu- 
line tendencies,  are  receding  more  and  more  into  the 
background. 

There  is  an  historical  process  to  be  perceived  in  this 
change,  which  necessarily  accompanies  the  course  of 
civilisation;  and,  if  the  primitive  and  original  mascu- 
linity is  to  be  regarded  as  the  strongest — as  that  in  which 
the  power  of  the  human  race  finds  its  absolute  expression 
— a  degeneration.  It  is  easy  to  prove  from  history  how 
often  the  warlike  masculinity  of  barbaric  or  semi- 
barbaric  peoples  has  conquered  civilised  peoples  whose 
warlike  instincts  have  been  extinguished.    This  appears 


94  A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

to  constitute  an  objection  to  the  alteration  in  masculinity 
which  is  caused  by  civilisation.  And  so  we  come  to 
the  paradoxical  conclusion  that  through  civilisation — 
which  is  almost  entirely  the  work  of  masculine  intelli- 
gence— man  himself  labours  to  bring  about  the  destruc- 
tion of  his  masculinity. 

But  if  merely  the  primitive  side  of  this  conception 
were  considered,  its  significance  would  be  restricted 
within  too  limited  an  area.  In  the  very  beginnings  of 
civilisation  another  phase  of  masculine  nature  begins  to 
make  itself  felt,  and  to  divide  individuals  into  various 
groups.  It  makes  clear  that  two  antagonistic  instincts 
are  struggling  for  mastery  within  the  male  sex  itself. 
The  primitive  masculinity,  which  is  based  on  the  utmost 
development  of  physical  faculties,  is  opposed  to  a 
differentiated  masculinity  which  is  directed  to  the 
development  and  the  increase  of  the  intellectual  faculties 
— the  power  arising  from  physical  superiority  is  opposed 
to  the  power  arising  from  intellectual  superiority. 

This  conflict  within  the  male  sex  is  not  more  important 
and  far-reaching  in  its  'social  consequences  than  the 
conflict  between  the  male  and  the  female  sexes,  which, 
presumably,  is  equally  deep-seated.  It  declares  itself 
as  a  continuous  struggle  between  these  two  impulses  for 
the  mastery  over  human  society.  The  ideals  of  life 
which  they  evoke  operate  in  opposite  directions,  and  in 
their  final  results  they  mutually  exclude  one  another. 
Nevertheless,  they  continue  side  by  side  during  the  whole 
course  of  the  development  of  civilisation;  they  assume 
various  shapes,  are  transformed,  blend  together  and 
manifest  the  strangest  contradictions. 

The  oldest  representatives  of  these  ideals  of  life  are 
the   warriors   and    the   priests.      In   them    the   conflict 


On  Masculinity  95 

between  the  masculine  impulses  is  most  clearly  visible. 
Again,  the  struggle  for  predominance  is  shown  by  the 
status  attained  by  these  types  in  the  earliest  social  com- 
munities. Whilst  with  barbaric  peoples  the  warrior 
occupies  the  highest  social  standing,  the  priest  in  even 
the  most  ancient  civilisations  has  been  ranked  higher 
than  the  warrior.  In  the  guise  of  the  priesthood  the 
differentiated  masculinity  first  triumphed  over  the 
primitive.  It  is  true  that  the  ideal  of  a  rank  or  a  caste 
was  not  always  realised  in  the  individual;  in  the  priest- 
hood itself  the  antagonism  between  the  external  con- 
ditions of  life  and  the  bent  of  the  individual  has  often 
led  to  degeneration  of  the  worst  kind. 

Theoretically,  the  Christian  epoch  represents  to  western 
civilisation  the  predominance  of  priestly  ideals.  But  in 
practice  warlike  masculinity  has  never — not  even  at  the 
period  when  Christian  thought  possessed  the  strongest 
suggestive  power — been  absent  when  circumstances  re- 
quired it.  During  the  whole  of  the  Middle  Ages  the 
antagonism  between  these  heterogeneous  ideals  is  easily 
discernible,  and  if  the  men  of  the  early  Middle  Ages 
set  aside  reading  and  writing  as  an  occupation  for  priests 
and  women,  from  the  standpoint  of  warlike  masculinity, 
they  had  every  justification  for  doing  so.  They  sus- 
pected rightly  the  traps  in  which  the  elementary  impulses 
of  masculinity  were  to  be  caught  and  broken,  the  tempta- 
tion of  a  mode  of  life  which  was  to  annul  the  distinction 
between  man  and  woman. 

The  relations  between  the  priestly  and  the  feminine 
ideals  have  always  had  a  somewhat  degraded  aspect  in 
the  eyes  of  warlike  masculinity.  To  them,  peaceful, 
contemplative  persons  are  not  wholly  men.  Those,  on 
the  other  hand,  who,  because  the  deepest  need  of  their 


96  A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

natures  demanded  that  they  should  be  spared  all  conflict 
and  violence,  have  created  for  themselves  a  heaven  in 
which  life,  in  the  shape  of  the  most  sublime  spirituality, 
is  imagined  as  an  eternal,  ecstatic  vision,  regard  the 
warriors  with  a  reciprocal  contempt,  as  a  lower  race  unfit 
to  approach  anything  divine.  Christian  standards  have 
carried  this  process  of  spiritualisation  so  far  that,  strictly 
speaking,  every  activity  of  primitive  masculinity  is 
excluded.  The  figure,  therefore,  of  the  pious  warrior 
who  follows  his  murderous  calling  in  the  expectancy 
of  a  heavenly  reward  is  a  Christian  absurdity;  it  only 
shows  how  instincts,  working  subconsciously,  will  link 
themselves  with  theoretical  points  of  view  which  have 
been  impressed  on  the  mind  by  external  influences. 

Something  of  this  absurdity  clings  to  the  modern  ideas 
of  masculinity.  The  present  time  is  absolutely  charac- 
terised by  the  difi^erentiated  masculinity  which  has  been 
described.  It  is  distinguished  from  other  periods  by 
the  development  of  thought  and  the  tendency  to  make 
the  means  of  culture  as  universal  as  possible.  Its 
nature  is  technically  intellectual  and  aesthetically  con- 
templative. Beyond  these  provinces  life  is  in  a  state 
of  absolute  decay — and  this  decadence  is  greatest  in  the 
province  of  primitive  or  warlike  masculinity. 

The  struggle  with  the  elementary  forces  of  nature 
which  raised  primitive  masculinity  to  such  a  high  moral 
level  has,  by  the  technical  mastery  of  these  forces,  been 
transferred  almost  entirely  to  the  domain  of  intellec- 
tuality, where  it  is  no  longer  a  question  of  courage  or 
physical  strength,  but  of  quickness  and  inventiveness. 
Even  man's  labour  has  been  replaced  by  machinery. 
The  man  who  tends  machinery  has  merely  a  certain 
manual  skill  which  in  most  cases  may  easily  be  acquired 


On  Masculinity  97 

by  women  and  children.  It  is  perfectly  natural  that  where 
labour  by  machinery  is  concerned,  women  should  be 
supplanting  men. 

The  ethical  side  of  the  physical  superiority  by  which 
man  constituted  himself  the  lord  and  protector  of  the 
woman  and  child  has  also  lost  its  significance  under  the 
postulates  of  modern  government.  The  "  strong  hand  " 
which  in  other  social  conditions  was  indispensable  to  the 
individual  man  and  was  justly  the  foundation  of  his 
predominance,  has  become  altogether  superfluous. 

But  although  modern  conditions  are  reducing  the 
activities  of  primitive  masculinity  to  a  narrower  circle 
every  day,  although  culture  itself  must  be  regarded  as 
the  goal  of  differentiated  masculinity — yet  barbaric 
values  will  nevertheless  persist  in  customs  and  in  normal 
standards.  Soldiers  are  still  accorded  the  first  social 
rank;  war  is  still  held  in  high  honour,  and  everything 
connected  with  it  is  surrounded  by  a  halo  of  supreme 
importance  and  distinction. 

II 

When  Friedrich  Nietzsche  endeavoured  to  give  to 
the  future  generations  a  canonical  book  of  new  life 
values,  he  made  Zarathustra  say :  "  Man  is  made 
for  war  and  woman  for  the  diversion  of  the  warrior." 
He  wanted  to  reinstate  the  primitive  instincts  of  man; 
in  the  old  antagonism  between  warrior  and  priest  he 
took  the  part  of  the  warrior,  and  to  the  priest  he 
ascribed  the  blame  for  the  poisoning  of  life. 

But  even  supposing  this  dictum  of  Zarathustra's  were 
suited  to  the  natures  of  the  majority,  a  warning  to  the 
coarse,  the  vulgar,  the  materialistic  to  avoid  sinking  into 

H 


98  A  Survey  of  the  Womaii  Problem 

stagnation,  or  were  it  even  to  indicate  to  the  exceptional 
how  they  might  escape  the  evils  of  effemination,  is  there 
a  possibiHty  of  again  cuhivating  primitive  mascuHnity 
under  modern  conditions  of  life  and  of  preventing  its 
decline  ? 

Three  phases  may  be  distinguished  in  the  course  of 
this  decline.  The  first  goes  back  to  the  period  when 
agriculture  and  industry  passed  out  of  the  hands  of 
woman  into  those  of  man;  here  the  unwarlike  individual 
is  given  a  social  function  and  value;  he  who,  until  then, 
had  been  useless  and  despised.  In  this  lies  the  founda- 
tion upon  which  are  reared  the  antitheses  to  the  instincts 
of  masculinity.  The  second  phase  can  be  reckoned,  so 
far  as  European  civilisation  is  concerned,  from  the  time 
when  the  use  of  gunpowder,  in  warfare  as  well  as  in  the 
chase,  gave  to  those  two  distinctive  expressions  of  primi- 
tive masculinity  an  entirely  different  character.  The 
third  phase,  the  one  in  which  the  ruin  of  primitive 
masculinity  becomes  glaringly  apparent,  is  brought  about 
by  the  predominance  of  machinery,  and  begins  about 
the  time  when  the  civilian  laid  aside  the  sword — a  visible 
sign  that  he  had  handed  over  to  the  State  the  chief  right 
of  warlike  masculinity,  the  right  of  self-defence. 

To  the  great  credit  of  the  Asiatic  people  be  it  said,  that 
within  the  circle  of  their  own  civilisation  they  made  use 
of  the  discovery  of  gunpowder  chiefly  for  aesthetic  pur- 
poses, and  delighted  in  dissipating  its  deadly  powers  in 
the  shape  of  elaborate  fireworks.  Were  the  men  of 
Europe  so  much  more  brave  and  warlike  when  they 
created  with  this  material  the  most  terrible  and  mur- 
derous of  all  weapons  .f*  Or  was  it  merely  because  the 
stronger  instincts  of  primitive  masculinity  had  already 
left  them? 


On  Masculinity  99 

No  man  possessed  of  really  warlike  feelings  would 
ever  have  adopted  this  weapon.  The  warlike  element  in 
masculine  nature  has  its  origin  in  neuro-muscular 
activity.  In  general  the  male  sex  is  brave  and  aggressive 
on  account  of  its  muscular  strength,  while  the  female  sex 
is  timid  and  passive  because  of  its  muscular  weakness. 
All  these  proofs  of  exaggerated  vitality  which  impel 
man  to  express  himself  in  battle  arise  from  the  conscious- 
ness of  his  physical  strength.  War  is  the  state  in  which 
primitive  man  is  essentially  in  his  element,  that  is  why 
most  barbaric  races  look  upon  war  as  the  normal  life 
of  a  man. 

Warfare  really  consists  of  outbreaks  of  aggressive 
impulses,  and  the  weapons  with  which  it  is  carried  on 
are  suited  to  the  needs  of  those  who  wield  them.  They 
make  possible  an  individual  bravery  which  determines 
the  degree  of  manly  worth,  and  they  afford  protection 
to  the  warriors  either  through  personal  dexterity  or  by 
means  of  external  safeguards  such  as  the  use  of  the  shield 
and  a  coat  of  mail  to  protect  the  most  vital  parts  of  the 
body.  The  sword,  the  rapier,  the  lance,  the  spear,  even 
the  bow  and  crossbow,  are  manly  weapons. 

This  cannot  be  said  of  firearms.  Firearms  are 
cowardly;  through  their  use  an  attack  becomes  merely 
a  murderous  ambuscade  and  defence  a  passive  and 
fatalistic  acceptance  of  the  inevitable.  The  courage 
which  drove  the  man  armed  with  shield  and  sword  into 
battle  was  a  natural  expression  of  manliness;  but  that 
which  the  modern  man  thinks  he  displays  when  baring 
his  breast  to  the  pistol  of  an  antagonist  is  not  courage 
in  the  real  sense  of  the  word,  but  the  sickly  decadent 
product  of  a  Christian  ascetic  self-conquest  and  of  an 
atavistic  masculine  bravado.     It  is  not  without  signific- 

H    2 


100         A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

ance  that  in  his  Manuel  Venegas^  in  which  he  seeks 
to  portray  a  type  of  proud,  high-minded,  self-mastering 
manhood,  Pedro  de  Alarcon,  the  Spanish  poet,  makes  his 
hero  disdain  firearms  as  treacherous  and  cowardly,  even 
in  a  fight  with  a  bear. 

What  evil  has  been  brought  into  the  world  by  these 
cowardly  and  treacherous  weapons  since  the  refinements 
of  modern  science   have   brought    them  to  a   state  of 
horrible  perfection !     The  immense  change  that  has  taken 
place  in  warfare  by  reason  of  technical  improvements  in 
firearms  in  conjunction  with  universal  military  service 
is  without  a  parallel   in   history.      The  wars  in   which 
mercenaries  were  engaged  and  which  provided  a  career 
for  all  those  intractable,  adventurous  young  men  who 
were  temperamentally  averse  from  peaceful  industries, 
were  never — whatever  evils  they  may  have  induced — 
anything  more  than  expressions  of  elemental  masculinity, 
to  be   suffered  like  any  other   inevitable  phenomenon 
inherent  in  the  nature  of  things.    But  the  mad.  Moloch- 
like spirit  of  massacre  which  informs  present-day  war- 
fare has  no  longer  anything  in  common  with  the  instincts 
of  masculinity.    Can  there  be  any  question  of  individual 
bravery  in  face  of  these  terrible  engines  of  murder,  these 
explosive   shells  which  blow   into  fragments   hundreds 
of  human   bodies,  or  mow  down   the  defenceless  and 
helpless  hosts  as  with  a  scythe .?    These  horrible  weapons 
reduce  soldiers  to  mere  living  lumps  of  flesh  and  blood, 
permitting    themselves    to   be    mangled    according    to 
orders.      "  From   heroic  days,"  said   Richard   Wagner, 
"  we  have  inherited  only  the  slaughtering  and  the  shed- 
ding of  blood  without  heroism  of  any  kind,  and  with 
nothing  but    discipline    to   take    its    place."      It  is  no 
longer  the  highest  type  of  active  virility  which  finds 


On  Masculinity  loi 

scope  for  its  energies  in  war,  but  the  utmost  passivity, 
the  sufferance  of  an  overwhelming  compulsion.  Modern 
warfare  has  lost  its  manliness  and  has  become  stamped 
with  effeminacy. 

One  has  only  to  read  any  truthful  description  of  war 
as  it  is  seen  by  the  ordinary  soldier  in  the  ranks — one 
of  those  rare  descriptions  which  are  not  coloured  by 
sentimental  ideas  of  military  glory — in  order  to  realise 
that  no  trace  remains  of  the  traditional  feelings  which 
formerly  made  warfare  a  school  for  manliness.  Emile 
Zola  has  brought  this  home  to  us  in  his  Debacle;  and  we 
have  convincing  evidence  in  the  words  of  a  Prussian 
soldier  who  took  part  in  the  Spicheren  engagement  of 
the  6th  of  August,  1870:  "Heart-breaking  misery, 
despair,  fear,  terror,  ill-disguised  shame — all  these  things 
were  to  be  seen  in  the  faces  of  these  poor  wretches 
doomed  to  die,  but  no  longer  any  trace  of  glowing 
ardour,  nor  any  fanatical  lust  to  slaughter  or  to  be 
slaughtered.  .  .  .  Like  so  many  chickens,  when  a  bird 
of  prey  has  swooped  down  and  carried  off  one  of  the 
flock,  we  huddled  instinctively  together,  trembling,  our 
nerves  shattered,  each  of  us  crouching  behind  the 
others  for  shelter.  .  .  .  Pale  as  death,  breathing 
hard,  our  hearts  palpitating,  our  limbs  quivering, 
there  we  remained  awaiting  pitiably  the  Dread  Thing 
that  was  coming.  In  truth,  the  instinct  of  self- 
preservation  is  often  stronger  than  all  good  reso- 
lutions, and  a  mere  movement  would  have  been  enough 
just  then  to  have  broken  down  the  bonds  of  discipline. 
Then,  a  certain  restlessness  in  the  battalion  having  be- 
trayed the  critical  condition  we  were  in,  I  saw  our 
Commander  galloping  towards  us,  and  heard  him  shout 
in  sharp,  clear  tones  audible  above  the  thunder  of  the 


I02         A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

cannon:    'Officers,    make    ready — draw    revolvers!'" 
{More  Light  in  Our  JVorld^  Gustav  Miiller). 

Thus  are  our  modern  warriors  driven  into  battle 
between  two  fires  :  in  front  of  them  the  rifle-muzzles 
of  the  enemy,  behind  them  the  revolvers  of  their  superior 
officers!  In  the  case  of  quite  rough,  uneducated  soldiers, 
the  sight  of  blood  is  apt  to  evoke  a  blind  Berserker 
fury.  In  which  they  recklessly  fire  away  their  ammuni- 
tion. What  is  most  terrible,  however,  is  the  plight  of 
those  who  must  fulfil  the  same  duties  as  the  professional 
soldier  although  divorced  by  all  the  influences  of 
civilisation  from  the  instinct  of  the  fighter,  and  accus- 
tomed to  the  sheltered  existence  proper  to  their  intel- 
lectual calling.  Universal  military  service  is  a  Tower 
of  Babel  in  its  confusion  of  the  instincts.  What 
qualifications  for  military  service  are  to  be  found  in  an 
artist,  a  scholar,  a  teacher,  or  an  official  .'*  In  all 
previous  epochs  of  civilisation,  war  was  the  afi^air  of  a 
certain  distinct  class,  and  all  those  who  were  occupied 
in  peaceful  aff^airs  were  exempt  from  it,  unless  they 
themselves  volunteered  their  services.  But  general 
military  service,  as  it  exists  on  the  continent  of  Europe, 
is  the  worst  form  of  slavery  with  which  a  free  humanity 
has  ever  been  burdened.  Through  it,  all  men  become 
the  bondmen  of  their  State;  they  must  at  regular  in- 
tervals 2:ive  up  freedom  as  citizens  in  order  to  submit 
themselves  to  the  discipline  and  prejudices  of  a  class  in 
whose  privileges  as  a  rule  they  have  no  share.  And  as 
they  are  forced  to  adopt  in  their  private  life  the  con- 
ception of  military  honour,  which  is  entirely  based  upon 
the  primitive  masculine  instincts,  they  are  decidedly  at 
a  disadvantage  when  compared  with  professional 
soldiers.     If   the   primitive  instincts   were   stronger   in 


On  Masculinity  103 

these  civilians,  the  regulation  forbidding  them  to  carry 
arms  in  spite  of  their  military  service  would  be  intoler- 
able to  them,  as  would  be  also  the  idea  of  being  obliged, 
unarmed,  to  associate  with  their  armed  fellow-men. 

If,  therefore,  the  military  profession  in  our  modern 
state  of  society  is  accorded  all  the  honours  which, 
according  to  primitive  ideas,  were  due  to  the  warrior  as 
the  finest  type  of  manhood,  this  can  only  be  described 
as  atavism.  For  war  is  so  rare  an  occurence  that  not 
everv  generation  of  recruits  has  any  experience  of  it; 
and  it  cannot  be  held  that  such  distinctions  are  warranted 
by  the  activities  of  the  military  in  times  of  peace. 

The  deterioration  in  the  primitive  masculine  in- 
stincts is  not  less  marked  in  modern  sport  than  in 
modern  war.  When  compared  with  the  dangers  which 
were  run  by  men  of  earlier  times  in  pursuit  of  game — 
dangers  which,  in  conjunction  with  the  quarry,  consti- 
tuted the  real  value  of  the  hunt— a  modern  "  drive  "  is 
something  ridiculous  and  pitiful.  If  any  fatigue  or 
danger  be  involved  at  all,  it  is  for  the  drivers,  not  for  the 
sportsmen.  For  any  man  of  natural  instincts  it  would 
have  seemed  a  repellent,  and  even  contemptible,  thing 
to  stand  in  safety  shooting  down  great  masses  of  harm- 
less, defenceless  creatures,  driven  deliberately  past  him. 
The  satisfaction  afforded  by  his  own  marksmanship 
could  not  have  blinded  anyone,  whose  instincts  were 
not  already  in  this  respect  perverted,  to  the  unmanliness 
of  such  a  proceeding.  And  yet  this  kind  of  "  sport  " 
is  regarded  as  a  fine  masculine  avocation,  just  as  though 
it  were  comparable  with  the  bold  and  courageous  hunt- 
ing of  bears  and  wolves  and  other  wild  and  dangerous 
beasts ! 

The  masculine  instincts  do  not  show  up  much  better 


I04       A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

even  in  those  other  forms  of  sport  in  which  such  violent 
exertions  of  the  body  and  feats  of  endurance  are  in- 
volved as  may  entitle  them  to  be  reckoned  as  accessories 
to  primitive  virility.     Accessories  they  are,  of  course, 
in  so  far  as  they  entail  the  development  of  the  muscles 
and    of  will-power,   but   they    cannot   be    reckoned   as 
achievements.      Sport  remains  merely  a  game;  that  is 
why  even  the  greatest  sporting  records — though  there 
may  be  much  to  say  in  their  favour — can  never  attain 
a  heroic  character  such  as  appertains  to  courage  shown 
in    the   face  of   real    danger.     A   mere   parade   of    the 
masculinity  arising  from  bravado  is  all  they  can  produce. 
But  if  we  wish  to  see  the  most  perverted  and  ludi- 
crous caricature  of  the  primitive  masculine  instincts,  we 
must  turn  to  the  Duelling-Code  of  our  German  stu- 
dents.    For  here  we  find  something  in  the  nature  of  an 
atavistic  manifestation  in  a  class  of  individuals  who  are 
destined    to    be    representatives    of    the    modified    or 
differentiated  form  of  manliness.     This  error  might  be 
disregarded  as  a  piece  of  juvenile  folly  if  it  found  its 
expression  only  in  the  actual  duelling  encounters,  with 
their  not  very  serious   blood-lettings   which  testify  so 
absurdly  to  the  "  untamed  nature  of  man  ";  but  as  these 
encounters  are  accompanied  by  the  obligatory  consump- 
tion of  alcohol,  with  its  frequently  degrading  results, 
the  whole  institution  in  its  present  form  presents  one 
of  the  worst  symptoms  of  the  decay  of  masculinity. 

Decay,  constant  and  unavoidable  decay!  Do  the 
careers  that  are  pursued  by  our  men  of  intellect  still  retain 
anything  in  common  with  the  instincts  which  charac- 
terised njasculinity  in  its  primitive  form .''  The  Govern- 
ment oflfice,  the  court  of  justice,  the  counting-house, 
the  studio — they  are  all  but  sepulchres  of  essential  mas- 


On  Masculinity  105 

culinity.  The  great  cities  are  its  veritable  cemeteries. 
Here  all  those  dangers  that  brought  it  into  being  are 
eliminated.  All  the  influences  of  life  in  great  cities 
tend  to  produce  the  very  infirmity  which  has  least  in 
common  with  masculinity — nervous  disease. 

All  this  shows  how  liable  to  modification  are  the 
characteristics  which  we  are  inclined  to  label  once  and 
for  all  as  masculine  or  feminine.  It  is  the  habit  to 
regard  the  nervous  system  of  men  as  more  resistant 
than  that  of  women,  and  to  consider  as  one  of  the 
important  differences  between  the  sexes  the  greater 
sensitiveness  which  is  attributed  to  women,  and  which 
involves  them  in  a  tendency  to  react  more  rashly  and 
with  less  restraint  to  influences  from  without.  What 
is  generally  thought  of  as  "  the  masculine  sense," 
though  it  is  far  from  being  found  exclusively  in  men, 
consists  in  self-control  and  undisturbed  presence  of 
mind  in  the  face  of  external  influences  and  impressions, 
and  depends  primarily  upon  the  resistance  of  the  ner- 
vous system.  But  the  weakening  of  the  nervous 
system  which  is  brought  about  by  the  life  of  the  great 
cities  is  also  intensifying  the  nervous  irritability  of 
men  and  modifying  the  traditional  idea  of  the  sex. 

Neurasthenia,  the  typical  disease  of  the  great  city, 
is  the  deadliest  enemy  of  primitive  masculinity.  One 
has  but  to  think  of  the  psychical  manifestations  which 
accompany  neurasthenia — the  depression  and  moodi- 
ness, the  unreasonable  fear,  nervousness  and  indecision, 
all  symptoms  of  hyper-sensibility  to  realise  that  the 
sufferer  from  this  malady  has  all  the  characteristics  of 
a  womanly,  or,  one  might  rather  say,  of  a  womanish 
type. 

To  men  of  the  intellectual  callings  the  effects  of  city 


I  o6        A  Survey  of  the  Woman   'Problem 

life  are  less  injurious  than  to  others,  for  the  conditions 
under  which  they  follow  their  careers  are  not  incom- 
patible with  the  less  serious  forms  of  neurasthenia. 
These  conditions  involve  in  many  ways  a  considerable 
diminution  of  the  aggressive  instincts,  and  the  full  force 
of  masculine  impetuosity  would  be  more  of  a  disad- 
vantage than  an  advantage  to  them. 

Therefore,  the  life  of  the  great  cities  does  not  neces- 
sarily tend  to  the  deterioration  of  the  masculine  sex; 
it  is  in  conflict  merely  with  the  primitive  ideal  of  mas- 
culinity. To  accept  this  ideal  would  be  to  close  one's 
eyes  to  the  entire  evolutionary  process  of  civilisation. 
It  cannot  be  reconciled  with  the  spirit  of  progressive- 
ness.  Heroism  in  battling  with  physical  dangers,  which 
brought  out  all  that  was  noblest  in  primitive  masculinity, 
has  for  the  greater  part  lost  its  field  of  action;  the  tasks 
that  are  still  available  for  its  operation  grow  steadily 
fewer,  for  life  is  now  governed  by  new  aims  which  call 
forth  those  who  possess  the  necessary  qualities  for  their 
fulfilment. 

The  darker  sides  of  this  primitive  ideal  of  manhood 
have  always  obscured  its  advantages.  It  has  made  of  man 
the  most  wicked  beast  of  prey  among  all  the  creatures 
of  the  earth;  it  has  turned  all  life  into  a  battle-ground; 
it  has  sanctioned  murder  and  made  the  shedding  of 
blood  a  joy.  Only  when  the  consequences  of  its 
gradual  disappearance  have  become  impressed  upon  the 
social  consciousness  may  a  new  day  for  humanity  be 
said  to  have  dawned. 


On  Masculinity  107 


III 

And  thus  would  come  about  the  possibility  of  attain- 
ing an  infinitely  higher  form  of  manhood  than  has  been 
presented  by  any  previous  epoch  of  civilisation.  The 
circumstances  responsible  for  the  disappearance  of  the 
primitive  male  instincts  would  place  this  higher  type 
of  man  at  the  head  of  civilisation,  in  the  rank  due  to 
him  as  its  creator. 

But  when  one  regards  this  higher  or  modified  type 
of  manhood,  or,  to  put  the  matter  in  concrete  form, 
surveys  men  of  intellectual  callings  in  the  light  of 
prevailing  conditions  and  opinions,  one  meets  with 
disillusion.  In  almost  all  other  civilised  times  and 
countries  the  qualifications  fitting  a  man  for  an  intel- 
lectual life  have  been  appraised  more  highly  by  social 
traditions  than  in  the  Europe  of  to-day.  In  this  respect 
European  civilisation,  although  it  may  possibly  have 
removed  masculine  life  further  from  its  primitive  forms 
than  ever  before,  is  far  behind  the  civilisation  of  ancient 
times  or  of  the  East.  Whether  he  who  stands  highest 
in  the  eyes  of  the  general  public  be  the  man  of  letters, 
as  in  China,  or  the  ascetic,  as  in  India,  or  the  priest,  as 
in  Egypt,  it  is  always  the  higher  type  of  man,  the  man 
who  is  notable  for  the  highest  spiritual  attainments,  to 
whom  the  first  place  is  allotted.  Even  the  Middle  Ages 
gave  precedence  to  the  priests,  however  seldom  the 
individual  priest  might  have  realised  in  his  character  the 
qualities  to  which  this  precedence  was  due. 

We  look  in  vain  for  any  such  standard  of  appraise- 
ment in  the  social  traditions  of  modern  European 
civilisation.     It  is  no  longer  in  the  sphere  of  priestly 


I  o8        A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

ideals  of  life  that  masculine  civilisation  establishes  its 
creative  power,  for  the  chasm  that  gapes  between 
modern  thought  and  traditional  religion  has  deposed 
the  priest  as  the  exponent  of  spirituality.  His  very 
existence  is  dependent  upon  an  outlined  interpretation 
of  the  world  which  excludes  him  from  participating  in 
the  living  process  of  intellectual  development;  and  the 
halo  surrounding  him  as  the  intermediary  between  the 
Kingdom  of  God  and  our  ordinary  earthly  existence 
has  faded  away  like  the  Kingdom  of  God  itself.  He, 
nevertheless,  still  enjoys  a  pronounced  ascendancy  of 
position  over  those  whose  intellectual  labours  have 
destroyed  the  ancient  interpretation  of  the  world  :  for 
his  vantage  point  is  based  upon  the  conscious,  ethical 
reco2;nition  of  a  higher  type  of  humanity,  incarnate  in 
the  priest,  and  in  the  antithesis  to  primitive  mas- 
culinity which  is  offered  by  his  well  formulated  ideals 
of  life.  This  is  quite  compatible  with  the  fact  that  in 
a  time  like  the  present,  so  replete  with  the  products  of 
decadence,  external  considerations  of  power  may  produce 
a  paradoxical  community  of  interests  between  the  army 
and  the  church. 

The  men  of  spiritual  temperament  who  belong  to  no 
church  lack  the  consciousness  of  this  antithesis;  conse- 
quently they  are  unable  to  create  out  of  their  aims  in 
life  a  new  order  of  manhood  endowed  with  a  normative 
power. 

Great  as  may  be  the  weight  of  masculine  thought  in 
that  form  which  it  assumes  in  modern  science,  even  so 
scanty  is  its  practical  moral  value  among  the  forces  of 
modern  life.  The  modern  man  suffers  through  his 
intellectuality  as  from  an  illness.  Either  it  degenerates 
into   intellectual   extravagance,   as    in    the  case   of    the 


On  Masculinity  109 

scholar,  in  whom  this  side  of  his  nature  develops  out  of 
all  relation  to  the  totality  of  life;  or  else  it  has  a  dis- 
integrating and  unbalancing  effect  upon  him,  as  is  so 
often  the  case  with  the  average  man  of  culture.  He  is 
neither  one  thing  nor  the  other,  neither  a  fully 
developed  man  of  thought  nor  a  primitive  man  of 
action.  He  is  forever  wavering  between  the  two 
spheres,  impelled  hither  or  thither  first  by  choice  and 
then  by  necessity.  His  struggles  towards  refinement 
and  improvement,  towards  existence  upon  a  higher 
plane  of  thought,  result  only  in  producing  a  state  of 
incurable  discord  within  himself. 

Is  it  not  amazing  that  men  whose  intellectual  develop- 
ment has  qualified  them  for  taking  a  critical  view  of 
everything  should  remain  uncritical  in  regard  to  the 
conception  of  manliness.'*  They  accept  the  evil  results 
that  come  from  the  incompatibility  between  the  accepted 
idea  and  the  actual  condition  of  things,  rather  than  ex- 
pose themselves  to  the  suspicion  of  unmanliness.  To 
achieve  manliness,  sheer  unadulterated  manliness,  is 
their  ambition,  and  they  are  all  oblivious  to  the  brutal 
or  the  base  or  the  corrupt  in  any  transaction,  provided 
that  this  tallies  with  the  traditional  concept  of  manli- 
ness. This  fear  of  appearing  unmanly,  of  displaying 
any  lack  of  that  virility  attributed  to  the  primitive  ideal 
of  the  sex,  serves  to  maintain  all  the  preposterous 
atavistic  prejudices,  all  the  senseless,  incompatible  ten- 
dencies of  which  the  life  of  the  modern  man  is  so  full. 
How  vacillating  and  uncertain,  however,  are  the  ideas 
which  underlie  this  sense  of  honour  concerning  manli- 
ness! Let  us  examine  the  idea  that  the  more  manly  a 
thing  is,  the  nobler  it  must  be  in  a  case  in  which  it  is 
not  concerned  with  woman;  for  instance,  in  the  matter 


1 1  o       A  Survey  of  the   Wo??ian  Problem 

of  national  self-esteem.  It  is  well  known  that  the  Latin 
races  consider  themselves  manlier  than  the  Teutonic. 
Mantes^azza,  for  instance,  speaks  of  the  more  womanly 
methods  of  love  of  the  "  blond  German."  The  Ger- 
mans, on  the  other  hand,  ascribe  womanly  charac- 
teristics to  the  Slavs — a  piece  of  national  assumption 
expressed  by  Bismarck  in  his  speech  to  the  Styrian 
Deputation  in  April,  1895.  "I  believe,"  he  said, 
"  that  we  Germans,  by  God's  grace,  are  fundamentally 
stronger;  I  mean,  manlier  in  our  character.  God  has 
established  this  dualism,  this  juxtaposition  of  manli- 
ness and  womanliness,  in  every  aspect  of  creation,  and 
therefore  into  the  European  constellation  as  elsewhere. 
...  It  is  not  my  wish  to  offend  the  Slavs,  but  they 
have  many  of  the  feminine  advantages — they  have 
grace  and  cleverness,  subtlety  and  adroitness";  and  on 
these  grounds  he  counselled  the  Germans  in  Austria  to 
bear  in  mind  in  all  their  relations  with  the  Slavs  that 
they,  the  Germans,  were  the  superior  race  and  must 
predominate,  "  just  as  in  marriage  the  man  ought  to 
predominate." 

Those,  however,  who  are  familiar  with  the  literature 
of  the  Slavs  know  what  a  less  flattering  picture  they 
paint  of  the  German  man;  in  their  eyes  his  national 
idiosyncrasy  is  not  superior  manliness,  but  a  coldly 
calculating,  avaricious,  arrogant,  thick-skinned  nature. 
And,  in  truth,  appraised  by  the  standard  of  more  re- 
fined forms  of  manhood,  and  sensibilities  developed 
beyond  murky  sexual  prejudices,  a  standard  such  as 
appears  in  Gontscharow's  Downfall^  in  Dostoieffsky's 
Idiot^  in  Tschernischeffsky's  Tales  of  a  New  Humanity^ 
the  Germans  have  little  reason  to  consider  themselves 
superior. 


On  Masculinity  1 1 1 

If  we  look  for  a  definite  formula  for  the  ideas  which, 
in  contrast  with  the  primitive  masculine  instincts,  are 
bound  up  with  the  higher  order  of  manhood,  we  may- 
find  it  in  a  transition  from  the  physical  and  the  material- 
istic into  the  spiritual.  In  this  particular  war,  as  man's 
most  distinctive  calling,  seems,  metaphorically  speakino^, 
to  admit  of  such  a  theory.  War  with  material  weapons 
has  given  place  to  war  with  spiritual  weapons;  the 
battlefield  is  to  be  found  in  the  realm  of  thought.  The 
masculine  element  remains  the  contentious  one  even  in 
the  world  of  intellect. 

This,  to  be  sure,  is  only  a  generalisation.  At  all 
periods  women  have  taken  part  in  these  spiritual 
struggles  in  so  far  as  the  customs  of  the  period  have 
allowed;  and  the  figures  of  notable  women  are  as  con- 
spicuous in  the  annals  of  religious  movements  as  in 
those  of  social  revolutions.  On  the  other  hand,  an 
existence  free  from  strife  has  always  been  desirable  for 
certain  intellectual  types  of  men,  for  the  artist  as  for 
the  scholar;  and  only  a  blatant,  ignoble  age,  in  which 
everyone  who  would  count  for  anything  must  espouse 
some  faction,  would  be  so  regardless  of  the  value  of  the 
contemplative  temperament  from  which  blossom  the 
noblest  flowers  of  the  mind,  as  to  force  the  artist  and 
the  savant  to  assume  a  warlike  part. 

With  regard  to  the  field  of  politics,  which  bears  most 
resemblance  to  the  traditional  idea  of  warfare,  and 
which  has  been  held  to  lie  chiefly  within  the  sphere  of 
masculine  activities,  we  may  cite  Burdach  to  the  eff*ect 
that  women  are  really  better  equipped  for  politics  than 
are  men;  while  Havelock  Ellis  remarks  that  the 
game  of  politics  certainly  appears  to  develop  specifically 
feminine  qualities   in  those  who   are   occupied  by   it. 


112        A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

This  by  no  means  involves  a  compliment  to  women  if 
we  bear  in  mind  the  tendency  of  the  modern  systems  of 
election,  which  are  all  in  favour  of  giving  prominence 
to  fluent  gabblers,  knights  of  the  tongue,  and  mounte- 
banks, who  are  cleverest  at  flattering  the  instincts  of 
the  crowd. 

War  with  the  pen  is  scarcely  better  calculated  than 
war  in  politics  to  bring  out  specifically  masculine  charac- 
teristics. Modern  journalism,  with  its  cloak  of 
anonymity,  is  not  exactly  a  school  for  manliness  and 
personal  courage,  apart  from  a  few  exceptional  phases 
of  it;  such,  for  instance,  as  the  career  of  a  war  corre- 
spondent. 

Perhaps  we  shall  come  nearest  to  understanding  the 
essence  of  the  newer  manliness  if  we  think  of  it  as  the 
power  of  shaping  life  in  accordance  with  one's  own 
will,  as  the  power  of  controlling  one's  own  character 
and  career.  To  lead  is  masculine,  to  be  led,  feminine. 
On  the  intellectual  side,  the  specifically  masculine  would 
be  found  in  the  greater  clarity  of  consciousness,  by 
virtue  of  which  the  motives  of  one's  conduct  are  dis- 
tinctly realised,  whence  this  realisation  becomes  the 
ruling-  factor  in  one's  conduct. 

In  truth,  all  these  criteria  are  relative,  and  hold 
good  only  when  we  are  contrasting  the  generality  of 
men  with  the  generality  of  women.  The  generality  of 
men,  when  not  contrasted  with  the  type  of  average 
womanhood,  would  be  excluded  from  the  sphere  of 
true  manliness.  The  proportion  of  the  strong  to  the 
weak  is,  with  men  as  with  women,  that  of  the  few  to 
the  many.  Within  the  confines  of  the  civilised  world, 
the  faculty  of  mastery — in  regard  to  spiritual  as  well  as 
worldly  matters — is  the  prerogative  of  exceptional  indi- 


On  Masculinity  1 1  3 

viduals;  the  great  majority  of  men,  like  the  great 
majority  of  women,  live  in  a  state  of  bondage  and  under 
the  necessity  of  dependence. 

Most  men  in  the  social  community  are  very  far  from 
being  free  agents  in  their  own  lives  and  actions.  That 
dread  abstraction,  the  State,  which  has  them  in  its  iron 
grasp,  from  the  cradle  to  the  coffin,  derives  its  power 
from  their  need  of  support.  Indeed,  the  form  which 
the  State  has  taken  in  our  own  lifetime — that  of  a  con- 
stitutional monarchy — has  simply  done  away  with  the 
leading  principle  of  ideal  manhood,  the  element  of 
initiative  and  the  assumption  of  full  responsibility.  It 
is  obvious  that  in  a  constitution  in  which  the  Monarch 
is  answerable  to  his  Ministers,  the  Ministers  to  Parlia- 
ment, the  Members  of  Parliament  to  their  electors  for 
every  action  they  take,  no  kind  of  responsibility  can 
survive;  it  is — at  least  to  all  appearances — not  a  man's 
personal  will  and  judgment  that  prevail,  but  those  of 
some  authority  set  over  him.  The  man  must  always 
take  his  stand  behind  the  nebulous  conception  of  the 
*'  Will  of  the  People  "  in  every  public  function. 

Even  the  spiritual  creations  which  the  mind  of  man 
has  produced  and  set  up  as  objective  images  are  so 
many  evidences  of  his  being  ill-equipped  in  regard  to 
his  faculty  of  mastery  and  his  fitness  for  responsibility. 
What  a  need  of  support  and  subjection  is  indicated  in 
the  belief  in  a  transcendental  God,  who,  whether  as  an 
angry  or  as  a  benevolent  ruler,  as  a  severe  or  a  merciful 
father,  governs  all  the  affairs  of  men!  Man,  the 
supposed  master  of  the  world,  has  given  himself  into  the 
hands  of  this  God  in  the  same  way  that  Woman,  accord- 
ing to  his  ideas,  gives  herself  into  the  hands  of  Man. 

And   when   he   did  not  bow   down  to   the   idea  of 

I 


114        ^  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

Divinity  he  invented  some  other  idea  to  which  to  give 
allegiance.  Philosophy,  the  purest  emanation  from  the 
masculine  mind,  has  not  always  shown  us  man's  faculty 
of  mastery  and  fitness  for  responsibility  at  their  best. 
The  Categorical  Imperative,  as  taught  by  Kant,  placed 
the  ideal  man  under  the  domination  of  a  barren  abstrac- 
tion, only  to  end,  by  means  of  the  illimitable  power  of 
causality — as  Schopenhauer  understood  it — by  becoming 
an  absolutely  impotent  puppet,  dangling  from  the  cords 
of  illusion  and  jerked  and  pulled  about  by  the  universal 
will  in  conformity  with  its  own  ends.  Even  Friedrich 
Nietzsche  himself,  the  most  uncompromising  champion 
of  man's  mastery,  sought  to  construct  the  mental  con- 
dition of  the  Superman  upon  the  feeling  of  dependence 
which  goes  with  the  recognition  of  the  inevitability  of 
all  that  happens. 

Man,  therefore,  would  have  no  right,  generally 
speaking,  to  regard  himself  an  an  order  of  being  funda- 
mentally different  from  woman  in  the  matter  of  de- 
pendence and  the  need  of  control.  One  might,  of  course, 
urge  that  there  is  a  substantial  difference  between  sub- 
jection to  a  higher  abstract  power  and  subjection 
to  a  finite  human  being,  such  as  even  the  most 
strong-minded  of  men  must  be.  But  this  would  not 
dispose  of  the  great  mass  of  inferior  men  whose  de- 
pendence, voluntary  or  involuntary,  upon  very  finite 
human  beings  is  beyond  question. 

The  idea  of  man  as  lord  and  master  is  an  idea  which 
is  based  upon  sex.  Even  the  most  parasitical  of  average 
men  assumes  an  attitude  of  superiority  and  mastery 
towards  woman.  Strength  being  relative,  both  in  regard 
to  mind  and  body,  it  is  not  difficult  for  any  man  to  find 
a  weaker  being  by  whom  he  may  measure  his  superiority. 


On  Masculinity  1 1 5 

Thence  it  happens  that  in  the  eyes  of  the  great  majority 
the  female  sex  is  held  to  be  the  inferior,  widely  differ- 
entiated, as  it  is,  from  the  male  by  its  order  of  life  and 
its  occupation — although  it  would  be  difficult  for  anyone 
to  say  what  there  is  so  specifically  manly  in  the  work 
of  a  teacher,  a  doctor,  an  official,  or  a  lawyer  under 
modern  conditions  of  life.  The  great  difference  between 
man  and  woman,  involving  the  social  predominance  of 
the  man,  lies  in  the  sphere  of  primitive  masculinity. 
Within  the  sphere  of  modified  masculinity  it  has  no 
other  justification  than  that  which  the  sexual  relationship 
in  its  narrowest  sense  entails. 

If  men  in  general  are  reluctant  to  admit  that  under 
modern  conditions  of  life  they  no  longer  differ  from 
women  fundamentally,  but  only  in  externals,  and  if  they 
defend  their  callings  obstinately  against  the  incursion  of 
women,  it  must  be  confessed,  willingly  or  unwillingly, 
that  the  factor  in  them  which  resists  this  incursion 
cannot  really  be  that  desire  for  contrast  which  arises  in 
the  consciousness  of  sexual  power. 

With  regard  to  his  sexual  instincts,  the  average  man 
lives  in  another  world,  and  on  a  different  plane  of 
thought  and  feeling.  Civilisation  makes  demands  on 
him  which  are  at  variance  with  his  teleological  nature 
as  a  male.  It  is  the  teleology  of  his  primitive  sexual 
instincts  that  determines  the  intractability  of  the  impulse 
which  asserts  itself  beyond  all  restraint  in  the  individual 
soul,  and  shapes  the  personality  towards  its  own  ends. 
The  higher  conception  of  manhood,  on  the  other  hand, 
presupposes  quite  another  sort  of  relationship  between 
the  sexual  impulses  and  the  personality  than  prevails 
in  the  masculine  subconsciousness,  unqualified  by  any 
intellectual  modification. 

I   2 


1 1 6        A  Survey  of  the  Woman   Problem 

Herein,  perhaps,  lies  hidden  the  chief  reason  why  the 
modernised  type  of  man  does  not  venture  to  shape  life 
in  accordance  with  his  true  nature,  as  well  as  the  sub- 
terranean source  of  that  duality  or  discord  which  very 
few  men  are  able  to  overcome,  because  they  have  never 
acquired  any  clear  consciousness  of  it. 

It  is  noteworthy  that  in  proportion  as  the  male  sex 
progresses  from  its  primitive  conditions  of  life  it  loses 
the  natural  relationship  to  its  own  sexuality.  Is  it 
possible  to  imagine  anything  more  absurd  and  wrong- 
headed  than  the  position  taken  up  by  modern  civilised 
peoples  towards  sexual  matters?  The  hideous  falsity 
and  hypocrisy  which  prevail  in  this  matter  point  to  a 
serious  inability  in  the  individual  to  adapt  himself  to 
the  conditions  of  social  life.  That  the  simplicity  and 
innocence  of  the  sexual  life  should  in  so  large  a  degree 
have  been  lost  during  the  relatively  brief  period  which 
has  elapsed  between  the  days  of  classic  antiquity  and 
our  own  is  to  be  accounted  for  only  by  an  abnormal  con- 
dition of  the  soul  of  man — supposing  that  this  soul  has 
been  the  leading  and  controlling  factor  in  human  society. 

When  masculine  intellect,  having  developed  itself  in 
the  direction  of  abstract  study  and  grown  out  of  propor- 
tion by  force  of  "  specialising  "  in  one  particular  field, 
incurs  the  danger  of  disturbing  the  relation  of  the  in- 
dividual to  the  totality  of  life,  then  the  masculine 
temperament  disturbs  its  equilibrium  still  more  by  divid- 
ing the  individual  into  a  spiritual  being  which  is  lifted 
into  the  realms  of  a  lofty  intellectualism,  and  into  an 
animal  being,  degraded  to  the  lowest  level  of  sexual 
existence.  There  rankles  unceasingly  in  the  man's  soul 
the  old  enmity  between  mind  and  sex,  the  war  between 
propagation   and    personality,    which    has    placed    the 


On  Masculinity  1 1 7 

civilised  races  of  Europe  in  such  an  amazingly  disin- 
genuous and  distorted  relationship  towards  sexual 
matters. 

There  are  two  ways  in  which  the  freedom  of  person- 
aility  may  be  saved  from  the  oppression  of  the  sexual  in- 
stincts :  by  asceticism,  the  mortifying  of  the  flesh,  which 
is  at  the  same  time  a  negation  of  the  demands  which 
propagation  makes  upon  the  individual — abstinence  in 
this  sense  being  merely  another  term  for  asceticism — or 
by  that  reconciliation  of  the  two  conflicting  sides  of 
man's  nature  which  is  brought  about  by  love,  when  it 
affirms  propagation  in  the  spirit  of  personality.  For 
love  permits  of  the  sexual  relation  being  transfused  with 
a  content  of  personality. 

The  youth  of  to-day  progresses  towards  manhood  by 
neither  of  these  ways.  In  addition  to  the  lack  of  basic 
religious  faith  which  would  enable  him  to  live  in  sexual 
abstinence  until  his  marriage,  he  is  also  lacking  in  all 
moral  principles  of  suggestive  force  which  would  en- 
courage and  support  him  in  his  desire  to  overcome 
himself.  An  order  of  society,  however,  which  recognises 
marriage  as  the  only  legitimate  sexual  relationship,  and 
which  thus  makes  the  consummation  of  love  dependent 
upon  economic  conditions,  practically  vetoes  the  right 
to  love  during  the  very  period  in  which  Nature  most 
strongly  urges  it.  This  order  of  society,  therefore,  con- 
demns the  young  man  in  the  prime  of  his  youth  to 
have  sexual  relations  with  the  lowest  order  of  women — 
those  who  earn  their  livelihood  by  prostitution.  It  is 
right  that  this  calling  should  be  regarded  as  degraded, 
inasmuch  as  it  constitutes  a  retrogression  on  the  part 
of  women  to  the  rudest  primitive  conditions;  but  that 
the  social  condemnation  should  be  limited  to  the  woman 


I  1 8        A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

and  should  not  apply  also  to  the  man  who  is  implicated 
equally  in  this  retrogression  is  one  of  those  incon- 
sistencies which  are  only  to  be  accounted  for  by  the 
predominance  of  the  primitive  masculine  instincts  and 
of  the  views  resulting  therefrom. 

For  the  primitive  man  there  is  nothing  degrading 
in  promiscuous  sexual  relationships.  Despite  the  large 
place  which  sex  occupies  in  his  life,  it  is  nevertheless 
but  loosely  bound  up  with  his  inmost  personality. 
The  lack  of  harmony  between  his  undeveloped  eroticism 
and  the  power  of  an  original  polygamous  instinct  is  so 
great  that  it  was  not  necessary,  nay,  it  was  not  possible, 
for  him  to  bring  personal  emotion  to  every  sexual 
encounter,  and  his  rough-hewn  nature  experienced  no 
hurt  from  a  kind  of  gratification  of  the  senses  which  only 
on  a  higher  plane  of  feeling  leads  to  a  discord  between 
the  elementary  demands  of  sex  and  the  tendencies  of  a 
more  elevated  personality. 

With  those,  however,  in  whom  this  elevation  has  also 
been  perfected  in  the  sphere  of  sex,  this  soulless  promis- 
cuity takes  on  a  quite  different  aspect,  for  it  involves  a 
painful  conflict  between  those  external  forms  of  life  by 
which  they  are  fettered  and  the  inner  necessities  of  the 
emotions. 

Not  without  reason  have  the  priests,  those  representa- 
tives of  the  higher  order  of  manhood,  felt  the  necessity 
from  the  earliest  stages  of  civilisation  of  adopting  a 
special  attitude  towards  sexuality.  Whatever  strange 
form  religious  ideas  may  have  taken  on  the  subject, 
"purity,"  or,  in  other  words,  submission  to  a  severer 
rule  than  that  of  the  ordinary  man,  has  always  con- 
stituted the  first  regulation  for  the  ecclesiastic.  The 
high  value  attached  to  chastity,   which  seeks   to  base 


On  Masculinity  1 1 9 

itself  as  a  religious  commandment  upon  man's  meta- 
physical destiny,  seems  to  signify  that  it  endeavours  to 
convert  material  forces  into  spiritual.  If  the  higher 
form  of  manhood  consists  in  the  development  and 
intensification  of  the  power  of  the  mind,  that  is,  of  an 
intellectual  ascendency,  it  must,  above  all  things,  differ 
in  this  from  the  ordinary,  sensual  form  of  manhood;  for 
in  overcoming  instincts  which  have  had  the  effect  of 
enslaving  the  personality,  lies  the  source  and  means  of 
all  spiritualisation.  The  sexual  instinct  is  the  most 
dangerous  enemy  to  self-mastery  in  a  man.  In  seducing 
the  individual  into  sinking  below  the  level  of  his  person- 
ality, it  assumes  the  aspect  of  an  irresistible  force  and 
destroys  the  consciousness  of  that  inner  liberty  which 
springs  out  of  the  ability  of  the  higher  impulses  of  the 
will  to  resist  the  lower. 

In  an  order  of  society  which  offers  man  a  choice 
between  an  inconceivable  and  impossible  continence  or 
a  degrading  indulgence,  the  noblest  and  most  sensitive 
individual,  so  long  as  his  financial  standing  does  not  per- 
mit of  his  marrying,  must  fare  the  worst.  Sex  assumes 
a  mystic  nucleus  in  the  soul  of  the  man  of  refinement 
• — upon  this  point  we  need  not  allow  ourselves  to  be 
misled  by  the  prevailing  charms  of  attractions  of  mascu- 
linity. These  attractions  are  external  and  superficial; 
they  figure  as  mere  accessories  in  masculine  externals. 
But  that  men  of  intellect  should  be  annoyed  and  dis- 
turbed by  the  presentation  of  this  sexual  problem;  that 
they  who  indulge  so  freely  among  themselves  in  indecent 
jests  and  allusions  should  be  afraid  of  nothing  so  much 
as  of  the  serious  discussion  of  these  matters,  and  should 
prefer  to  close  their  eyes  to  them — this  signifies  that 
there  is  something  corrupt  in  the  sensibilities  of  man- 


I20        A  Survey   of  the  Woman  Problem 

hood.  Is  it  not  the  case  that  most  fathers  leave  their 
young  sons  to  the  guidance  of  chance,  and  thus  subject 
them  to  the  worst  physical  and  moral  dangers,  ere  they 
finally  resolve  to  touch  upon  this  subject  ? 

No  words  are  strong  enough  to  condemn  the  attitude 
of  the  middle  classes  towards  their  growing  boys.  Our 
methods  of  instructing  girls  in  regard  to  sex  may  be 
insufficient,  wrong  and  misguided — our  treatment  of 
boys  is  a  crime.  At  the  age  when  their  organism  is 
beginning  to  tremble  under  the  shocks  of  approaching 
manhood,  they  are  treated  like  sexless  machines,  con- 
demned to  the  tedium  of  dull  lessons  and  the  unwhole- 
someness  of  a  sedentary  life — in  itself  calculated  to 
stimulate  perverse  impulses — and  are  then  left  to  make 
their  first  sexual  experiences  in  the  arms  of  a  prostitute. 
They  are  thus  in  their  most  impressionable  years  allowed 
to  blunt  their  sensibility  in  regard  to  this  terrible 
degradation  of  love  and  to  become  deaf  to  the  warnings 
of  Nature.  For  Nature  speaks  as  with  tones  of  thunder 
against  promiscuity  and  punishes  it  with  the  most  dread- 
ful curses — with  illnesses  which  result  in  inconceivable 
misery  for  the  individual  and  his  posterity. 

We  need  not  here  discuss  the  question  whether  it  be 
really  the  case  that  "  a  man's  nature  cannot  arrive  at 
perfection  without  slips  of  conduct,"  as  a  moralist  of 
other  days  comfortingly  remarks;  and  we  may  leave  on 
one  side  also  the  question  whether  "  the  same  code  of 
morality  for  both  sexes  " — the  motto  of  a  social  move- 
ment— be  really  practicable  and  sound.  It  is  not  only 
from  a  standpoint  of  morality  that  the  conditions  in 
which  the  sexual  life  of  almost  all  men  develops  to-day 
are  seen  to  be  all  wrong.  There  are  people  who  contend, 
and  with  reason,  that  marriage  in  many  cases  is  scarcely 


On  Masculinity  1 2 1 

on  a  higher  level  of  morality  than  prostitution.  But 
there  is  a  psychological  factor  in  this  which  affects  the 
balance  not  a  little.  The  consciousness  of  inner  free- 
dom and  the  realisation  of  personality  will  have  a  solid 
foundation  only  in  those  men  who  come  off  victorious 
over  the  temptations  of  sex  in  the  sense  of  a  higher 
determination  of  the  will.  In  order  that  such  a  deter- 
mination of  the  will  may  be  possible,  the  conditions  of 
the  individual's  life  must  be  favourable.  When,  how- 
ever, as  in  modern  life,  they  serve  but  to  expose  him 
and  the  claims  of  his  sexuality  to  the  worst  conditions,  a 
debasement  is  unavoidable  from  the  moment  that  per- 
sonality and  sexual  impulse  are  in  conflict.  How  could 
the  furtive,  sordid  and  ignoble  secrecy  of  connection 
with  a  prostitute  fail  to  have  its  effect  upon  the  untram- 
melled manliness  of  the  emotions  ?  Its  effect  inevitably 
is  to  make  a  man  either  frivolous  or  untruthful  or 
wretched.  A  blight  falls  upon  him,  and  the  more  refined 
his  nature  the  more  terrible  it  is. 

This  might  seem  to  be  a  woman's  view  and  one-sided. 
There  is  no  lack  of  men  who  share  it,  but  the  rigorously 
virtuous  men  are  always  apt  to  be  suspected  by  their 
fellows  of  softness  and  cant.  Let  us  therefore  cite  an 
authority — a  man  who  cannot  be  accused  of  undue 
morality  in  his  own  life.  Guy  de  Maupassant,  in  his 
story  The  Bolt,  makes  an  old  bachelor  express  him- 
self as  follows  on  the  subject  of  sexual  relationships  of 
the  venal  kind  :  "  One  retains  a  sense  of  moral  and 
physical  nausea,  as  when  one  chances  to  handle  things 
smeared  with  pitch  and  there  is  no  water  available  with 
which  to  wash  it  off.  However  hard  one  rubs,  one 
can't  get  rid  of  the  stain." 

In  order  to  avoid  confessing  that  he  is  stained  the 


12  2        A  Survey  of  the  Wotnan  Problem 

man  of  intellect  beats  a  retreat  with  his  code  of  sexual 
morality  to  the  sphere  of  primitive  manhood,  although 
in  all  other  respects  he  has  no  longer  anything  in  common 
with  it.  In  capitulating  to  it  in  regard  to  this  one  point, 
he  accepts  defeat  throughout  the  whole  field.  He,  the 
representative  of  the  highest  human  development,  the 
predestined  leader  of  the  world,  gives  way  to  his  own 
sexual  impulse.  Instead  of  being  the  master,  he  allows 
himself  to  be  a  victim  to  a  social  order  in  which  primi- 
tive masculinity  is  triumphant,  the  coarsely  elemental, 
which  to  sublimate  and  render  serviceable  has  been  the 
enormous  task,  the  achievement  of  the  thousands  of 
years  which  man  has  devoted  to  civilisation. 

Nay,  more.  He  to  whom  Nature  has  been  so  partial, 
allotting  to  him  so  light  a  part  in  the  work  of  genera- 
tion compared  with  that  of  the  woman,  thus  placing 
at  his  disposal  every  possibility  of  intellectual  develop- 
ment, loses  through  his  own  indecision  and  inconsistency 
his  superiority  to  the  female  sex.  For  however  superior 
the  new  form  of  manhood  may  be  intellectually,  it 
cannot  compare  favourably  with  the  finer  womanhood 
in  the  field  of  ethical  culture. 

Moreover,  whether  or  not  sexuality  bears  a  different 
ratio  to  the  totality  of  a  woman's  nature,  or  whether  the 
sexual  differentiation  be  only  the  outcome  of  the 
demands  on  women  made  by  men,  certain  it  is  that 
woman's  strenuous  striving  after  sexual  purity  and  her 
exclusive  self-surrender  to  the  one  man  of  her  choice 
have  resulted  in  the  refining  and  ennobling  of  sexual 
consciousness  among  women.  The  heroism  of  self- 
mastery  which  women  display  in  thus  insisting  upon 
the  sexual  integrity  of  the  personality  is  a  form  of 
superiority  which  cannot  but  make  itself  felt  as  soon 


On  Masculinity  i  2  3 

as  the  recognised  restrictions  of  their  social  position 
shall  have  been  done  away  with.  It  already  places  them 
above  the  newer  form  of  manhood. 

In  accordance  with  an  inherited  view,  this  ethical 
superiority  of  women  merely  counterbalances  the  intel- 
lectual superiority  of  men,  thus  establishing  a  right 
balance  between  the  two  sexes.  That,  however,  is  a 
mere  evasion,  a  cloak  to  conceal  a  pitiable  state  of  things 
which  men  cannot  control. 

Perhaps  the  appearance  of  woman  as  a  social  fellow- 
worker  may  create  a  change  in  that  field  where  the  one- 
sided masculine  civilisation  has  failed.  We  have  seen 
that  the  desire  to  achieve  this  is  present  among  women 
who  are  aware  of  their  duties  to  society;  whether  they 
will  obtain  the  necessary  powers,  the  future  will  tell. 
The  man  of  intellect,  however,  will  not  develop  into  a 
harmonious  and  powerful  being  until  his  refinement 
shall  extend  to  the  sexual  side  of  his  nature.  To  be 
reborn  in  a  new  masculinity,  he  must  do  away  with  all  the 
prejudices  and  weaknesses  which  belong  to  the  primitive 
manhood,  retaining  only  those  elements  which  are  in- 
separable from  his  nature  as  a  man. 


WOMAN   AS    THE    GENTLEWOMAN 

From  whatever  point  of  view  we  may  consider  the 
problems  that  relate  to  woman,  we  are  certain  to 
encounter  something  hopelessly  contradictory.  No- 
where else  do  such  extreme  antitheses  lie  so  closely 
parallel  to  one  another.  Throughout  all  history  woman 
is  revealed  in  a  strange  twilight,  now  as  a  superhuman, 
now  as  an  infrahuman  being,  partly  divine  or  partly 
devilish;  now  as  a  prophetess  or  a  sibyl  endowed  with 
miraculous  properties;  or,  again,  as  a  witch  or  a  sor- 
ceress obsessed  by  demoniacal  powers.  This  mixture 
of  superstition  and  prejudice  operates  in  a  favourable 
as  well  as  an  unfavourable  sense.  It  also  produces  a 
very  contradictory  inequality  in  the  social  status  of  the 
female  sex.  It  is  either  oppression  to  the  point  of 
slavery,  or  glorification  to  the  point  of  worship.  If 
one  is  to  believe  the  psychologists,  the  need  for  subor- 
dination is  something  which  is  always  a  deep,  inherent 
factor  in  the  constitution  of  the  feminine  soul.  It  is  a 
fact  that  woman  in  all  ages,  and  among  nearly  all 
peoples,  has  both  by  custom  and  by  decree  been  given 
into  the  power  of  man.  Even  in  the  modern  state, 
woman,  as  daughter,  as  wife,  and  as  mother,  is  con- 
demned to  a  state  of  sexual  dependence,  and  in  her 
capacity  as  a  self-supporting  wage-earner,  as  an  employe 
of  the  State,  as  a  teacher,  and  as  a  worker,  she  is  unmis- 


Woman  as  the  Gentlewoman  125 

takably  given  to  feel  that  the  female  sex  is  considered 
as  the  inferior  and  less  efficient.  And  yet  the  female 
sex  has  attained  to  one  position  in  which  it  enjoys  the 
privilege  of  undisputed  authority.  Woman  as  the  great 
lady — is  it  too  much  to  say  that  in  this  aspect  a  portion 
of  the  female  sex  has  achieved  the  most  brilliant  and 
gratifying  sovereignty.''  Is  not  the  lady  the  true  mis- 
tress and  queen  of  the  existing  social  order.?  Are  not 
the  most  valuable  privileges  and  amenities  which  this 
order  possesses  placed  in  her  hands,? 

There  are  two  things  which  form  the  necessary  con- 
ditions for  this  existence — wealth  and  beauty.  It  is 
true,  of  course,  that  descent  from  a  so-called  good  family 
is  also  an  appreciable  factor,  but  the  born  lady  who  is 
not  provided  for  by  her  people,  or  does  not  possess 
sufficient  beauty  to  win  a  rich  husband  and  a  correspond- 
ing position  in  life,  is  usually  forced  to  descend  from 
her  throne  in  order  to  earn  her  living.  It  is  safe,  there- 
fore, to  assume  that  beauty  is  the  first  stipulation  for 
the  rank  of  a  lady,  and  rather  that  beauty  which  is  as- 
sisted by  artificial  means,  than  mere  natural  beauty. 
The  arts  of  the  toilet  in  which  feminine  taste  has 
achieved  so  great  a  mastery,  constitute  part  of  the  most 
important  duties  in  the  life  of  the  social  dame.  Balzac, 
not  without  irony,  has  thus  described  her  existence : 
"  She  loves  to  comb  and  perfume  her  hair,  to  polish 
her  rosy  nails  and  cut  them  to  an  almond  shape,  to 
bathe  regularly  her  delicate  limbs.  .  .  .  Her  fingers  are 
fearful  of  touching  aught  that  is  not  soft,  tender,  and 
odorous.  .  .  .  Does  she  eat.?  That  is  a  secret.  Does 
she  share  in  the  necessities  of  the  other  species.?  That 
is  a  problem.  ...  To  garner  love  is  the  one  goal  of  all 
her  endeavours,   to  awaken   desire   that   of  her  every 


126        A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

attitude.  Night  and  day  she  dreams  of  new  embellish- 
ments, of  the  means  by  which  she  may  shine;  and  so 
she  consumes  her  life,  in  order  to  display  her  dresses 
and  wear  out  her  fichus.  She  fears  maternity  because 
it  destroys  her  waist,  but  she  embraces  matrimony 
because  it  promises  her  happiness." 

During  the  development  of  European  civilisation 
man  in  all  classes  has  evolved  into  a  type  of  the  utili- 
tarian, whilst  woman  has  become  a  type  of  the  beautiful. 
This  is  the  more  remarkable  inasmuch  as  it  is  a  sub- 
version of  the  natural  order  of  things.  For  among  the 
higher  animals,  as  well  as  among  savage  or  half-savage 
races,  ornamentation  and  the  brilliant  decoration  of  the 
exterior,  that  is  to  say,  the  emphasising  of  the  aesthetic 
principle,  is  a  prerogative  of  the  male  sex.  The  Greeks 
likewise  represented  their  supreme  ideal  of  human  per- 
fection in  the  form  of  Kalokagathos,  a  man.  All  those 
advantages  which  afterwards  became  the  prerogative  of 
the  lady — such  as  the  exquisite  care  of  the  body,  the 
consummate  charm  of  speech  and  attitude,  the  har- 
monious balance  of  physical  and  mental  parts,  the 
infallible  tact  in  the  management  of  social  forms,  the 
subtle  measures  of  restraint,  the  considerate  seemliness 
of  deportment — all  these  were  considered  by  the  Greeks 
as  evidences  of  a  beautiful  manliness.  The  crown  of 
creation  in  the  time  of  the  Hellenes  was  man;  in  the 
civilisation  of  modern  people,  at  least,  in  social  life,  it 
is  the  gentlewoman. 

One  might,  indeed,  endeavour  to  explain  this  fact  by 
the  supposition  that  it  is  due  to  an  effective  unfolding 
of  a  specific  feminine  genius  for  affability.  To  be  sure, 
it  is  rather  generally  assumed  in  our  day  that  genius  is 
to  be  found  only  in  the  male  sex.     But  one  overlooks 


Woman  as  the  Gentlewoman  127 

the  fact  that  feminine  genius  usually  manifests  itself  in 
quite  other  fields  than  those  belonging  to  man.  The 
gift  of  expressing  one's  personality  through  the  forms 
of  social  intercourse  may  be  considered  as  a  distinct 
feminine  talent,  even  though  it  be  not  exclusively 
feminine. 

As  soon  as  the  customs  of  Middle  Europe  became 
more  civilised,  and  gave  play  to  more  refined  exigen- 
cies, the  influence  of  the  female  sex  began  to  exert  a 
decisive  efl^ect  upon  the  prevailing  conditions.  For 
at  that  time  all  things  in  relation  to  the  female  sex 
were  otherwise  than  in  ancient  times,  and  to  some 
degree  justified  that  conception  of  woman  by  means  of 
which  she  rose  to  a  higher  plane.  The  patrician  women 
of  the  Middle  Ages  enjoyed  the  advantages  of  intellec- 
tual culture  even  more  than  the  men  of  their  class.  It 
was  they  who,  in  all  questions  of  "  morality,"  that  is 
to  say,  of  pleasing  custom  and  irreproachable  conduct, 
possessed  the  determining  word.  They  were  adepts  in 
maintaining  a  just  proportion  in  all  things,  a  virtue 
which  was  awarded  the  highest  honour  in  the  Middle 
Ages,  due  perhaps  to  the  law  which  obliged  the  men  of 
that  period  to  value  most  highly  in  their  women  pre- 
cisely those  qualities  which  they  themselves  lacked. 
They  were  likewise  versed  in  reading  and  writing, 
those  arts  which,  according  to  mediaeval  ideas,  stood  in 
closer  relation  to  the  priesthood  or  womankind  and 
did  not  comport  with  the  duties  and  activities  of  man. 
It  was  precisely  this  relationship  between  a  mode  of 
thought  inspired  by  religion  and  the  tendencies  of 
woman's  nature,  which  went  to  increase  the  estimation 
in  which  women  were  held  in  an  epoch  of  Christian 
faith.     In  them   the  compromise  between  Christianity 


128        A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

and  real  life,  which  is  expressed  in  Roman  Catholicism, 
finds  its  first  and  perfect  representations.  Not  men, 
but  women,  were  the  burden-bearers  of  ecclesiastical 
culture  in  its  worldly  aspects. 

However  high  we  may  adjudge  the  significance  to 
culture  of  the  mediaeval  woman,  it  seems  that  man  must 
be  given  an  equal  share  of  credit  in  bringing  about  so 
extraordinary  a  transformation.  The  origin  of  the 
gentlewoman  may  be  clearly  traced  to  the  amorous 
fantasy  of  the  man.  The  feeling  of  chivalry  towards 
woman  consists,  by  its  very  nature,  of  a  modification  in 
masculinity  itself;  that  is  to  say,  of  a  change  in  those 
ideas  which  are  part  of  the  erotic  sex-life.  One  might 
say  that  in  the  last  analysis  the  sexual  impulse  is  also 
the  determining  factor  in  the  social  position  of  woman. 
A  glance  at  the  historical  evolution  of  love-relationships 
will  serve  greatly  to  clarify  this  point. 

It  is  sufl^ciently  well  known  that  love,  amongst 
ancient  peoples,  was  directed  chiefly  upon  individuals 
of  the  same  sex.  The  sexual  instinct  of  the  male 
dominated  the  Greek  women  in  its  harshest,  most  des- 
potic form,  and  the  conditions  of  their  lives  were  deter- 
mined by  its  necessities.  The  Hellenes  and  Romans  of 
antiquity  are  closely  related  to  oriental  and  barbaric 
peoples  in  their  sexual  psychology,  and  their  erotic 
relations  are  established  upon  the  idea  of  masculine 
sovereignty  over  woman's  body  and  soul.  Woman  as 
a  mere  sexual  being,  as  a  chattel  penned  within  the  four 
walls  of  a  dwelling  over  which  she  has  no  jurisdiction — 
woman  as  the  bearer  of  children,  in  whose  education 
she  has  no  voice — such  is  the  form  which  the  erotics  of 
the  Greeks  gave  to  the  legitimate  life  of  man  and 
woman.     And  those  females  to  whom  men  granted  a 


Woman  as  the  Gentlewoman  129 

greater  freedom  for  development  were  excluded  from 
all  civic  honours  and  occupied  a  lower  place  in  the  ranks 
of  womanhood. 

One  might  entitle  this  kind  of  relationship  that  of 
the  primitive  or  authoritative.  It  is  as  primitive  and 
as  simple  as  the  instinct  of  which  it  is  an  expression,  and 
its  one  purpose  is  that  of  the  perpetuation  of  the  species. 
There  is  no  trace  of  any  attempt  being  made  to  unite 
the  interests  of  the  species  with  those  of  the  personality 
upon  a  higher  plane  of  feeling,  nor  of  more  deeply 
individualised  relations  or  intellectual  communion.  The 
opposition  between  the  rights  of  the  species  and  those 
of  personality  had  not  yet  become  a  problem,  for  the 
simple  reason  that  the  personality  was  still  in  embryo, 
or  because,  even  in  the  most  prominent  individual 
women,  the  sexual  sphere  had  not  yet  become  indi- 
vidually modified  nor  permeated  by  a  sense  of  per- 
sonality. In  this  direction,  too,  Plato  appears  as  the 
herald  of  a  new  age;  Plato,  that  ''fairest  fruit  of  anti- 
quity," in  whose  personality  and  ideals  one  may  already 
perceive  the  symptoms  of  that  universal  sickness  which, 
in  the  form  of  a  separation  of  spirit  and  nature,  was 
to  determine  the  intellectual  life  of  the  next  thousand 
years.  Perhaps,  hidden  deep  in  the  darkest  abysses  of 
the  human  consciousness,  the  final  cause  of  this  illness 
was  nothing  more  than  the  conflict  between  species  and 
personality. 

In  this  conflict,  which  Kant  has  formulated  in  his 
metaphysics  of  morality,  to  the  efi^ect  that  in  the  act  of 
generation  man  identifies  himself  with  something  which 
"conflicts  with  the  rights  of  humanity  to  his  own 
person,"  it  was  woman  who  sufl^ered  the  greatest  dis- 
advantage.    In  the  early  Christian  world,  to  be  sure, 

K 


130       A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

woman,  in  so  far  as  she  was  considered  as  a  "  sister," 
and  not  as  a  sexual  being,  was  under  the  same  obliga- 
tion to  conquer  sex  and  enjoyed  the  same  right  to  a 
non-sexual  heaven  as  man,  but  she  was,  at  the  same 
time,  considered  an  object  of  temptation  for  man;  the 
creature  who,  in  the  shape  of  Eve,  offered  Adam  the 
fateful  fruit  and  brought  transgression  into  the  world. 
The  less  subtle  minds  of  that  time,  like  those  of  to-day, 
confused  the  object  of  desire  with  desire  itself — some- 
thing that  is  expressed  very  vividly  in  the  fantastic 
phrase  of  Saint  Hieronymus,  who  calls  woman  "  the 
gate  of  Hell."  These  men,  suffering  from  an  inner 
discord,  were  able  to  free  themselves  of  the  painful 
battles  which  tore  their  souls  only  by  renouncing  woman 
and  the  duties  of  propagation  at  one  and  the  same  time. 
In  spite  of  all  the  prominence  given  to  women  among 
Christian  prophets  and  martyrs,  in  spite  of  all  the  well- 
earned  evangelical  pledges  of  equality,  neither  the 
erotic  nor  the  legal  standing  of  woman  was  in  any  way 
ameliorated  in  the  first  centuries  of  Christianity. 

But  in  the  development  of  young  races  the  earthly 
element  finds  an  aesthetic  expression  in  the  sensibilities 
of  those  who,  true  to  their  dispositions  and  inclinations, 
are  closely  identified  with  human  destiny — in  painters, 
in  poets,  and  in  the  elite  of  the  world  which,  in  con- 
junction with  poets  and  painters,  strives  to  give  a 
newer,  nobler  form  to  human  existence.  Life,  viewed 
in  the  light  of  lofty  and  ecstatic  illusions — this  distinc- 
tive mark  of  mediaeval  spirituality — affects  the  entire 
sexual  sphere  in  the  shape  of  a  cult  of  woman-worship, 
and  produces  a  new  phenomenon  in  the  masculine  soul. 
This  modification  of  masculinity,  which  first  became 
known  when   the  erotic  laws  of  chivalry   made  their 


Woman  as  the  Gentlewoman  131 

appearance,  is  one  of  the  greatest  achievements  of 
mediaeval  times,  for  it  created  a  new  kind  of  relation- 
ship between  man  and  woman. 

The  dependence  upon  woman  to  which  man's 
sexual  nature  makes  him  subject — a  dependence  from 
which  the  men  of  antiquity  sought  to  free  themselves 
by  maintaining  an  absolute  lordship  over  the  woman, 
in  contrast  to  the  men  of  ascetic  Christianity,  who  for- 
swore her  entirely — this  now  transforms  itself  into  a 
dependence  that  is  voluntary,  honourable  and  joyful. 
Out  of  the  pride  of  noble  natures  who  feel  that  they 
and  their  kind  must  be  their  own  pledge  and  justifica- 
tion, come  the  illumination  and  glorification  of  woman 
which  lie  at  the  basis  of  the  knightly  code  of  sex.  If 
man  were  dependent  upon  woman  it  would  be  im- 
possible for  woman  to  be  anything  but  a  sovereign 
mistress,  whom  to  serve  would  be  a  favour  and  a  privi- 
lege. The  chivalry  of  man  towards  woman  is  bound 
up  with  the  noblest  traits  in  human  nature;  with  pride 
which  will  serve  only  where  it  may  also  revere;  with 
magnanimity  which  turns  every  act  of  service  into  one 
of  devotion;  with  self-abnegation,  which  has  joy  in  its 
own  advantages  only  when  they  are  able  to  be  of  service 
to  others.  Every  lofty  feeling,  every  excess  of  emotion, 
every  refinement  of  a  new  civilisation,  now  pours  itself 
into  the  world  of  love  and  is  incarnated  in  the  living 
image  of  the  lady.  Nor  is  there  lacking  a  breath  of 
that  religious  fervour  which  finds  its  expression  in  the 
adoration  of  the  "  Queen  of  Heaven,  that  supreme 
Lady,  the  lovely  and  holy  Virgin,  who  was  the  veritable 
God  of  the  Middle  Ages  "  (Taine).  Love  elevates  the 
new  generations  into  a  state  of  wild  and  sentimental 
intoxication.     Dante,  who  cried,  **  I  listen  when  Love 

K  2 


132        A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

speaks  in  me,  what  he  reveals  unto  me  I  do  indite," 
makes  of  his  beloved  a  guide  to  the  highest  circles  of 
spirituality  by  investing  her  with  a  mystic  and  regal 
cloak  of  allegory.  He  associates  her  name  with  the 
ultimate  secrets  of  the  heavenly  spheres. 

These  chivalrous  conceptions  of  woman  have  become 
the  basis  for  the  life  of  the  higher  circles  of  European 
society  whose  centre  is  established  in  the  gentlewoman. 
Even  after  the  flower  of  the  chivalric  ideal,  and  the 
shining  forms  of  service  to  woman,  had  long  passed 
away,  woman  did  not  utterly  lose  the  prestige  of  a 
higher  being.  But  that  which  was  once  an  enthusiastic 
conviction  assumes  by  degrees  the  form  of  a  mere  con- 
vention.    Chivalry  degenerates  into  gallantry. 

Whilst  the  flexible,  restless,  ever-changing  genius  of 
the  male  sex,  advancing  with  the  progress  of  civilisa- 
tion, masters  all  the  means  of  intellectual  culture,  the 
lady  separates  herself  from  all  the  living  processes  of 
evolution  and  is  content  to  be  left  behind  in  the  realm 
of  gallantry.  To  be  sure,  even  in  her  now  shrunken 
sphere  there  is  still  plenty  of  room  for  the  play  of  her 
authority,  and  the  history  of  civilisation  in  the  seven- 
teenth and  eighteenth  centuries,  especially  that  of 
France,  is  determined  in  many  important  matters  by 
the  influence  of  the  social  dame.  But  much  of  that 
artificiality  and  hollowness  which  lay  hidden  behind  the 
external  glitter  of  this  period,  and  came  to  light  only 
in  that  stupendous  collapse  at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  may  in  no  inconsiderable  degree  be  traced  to 
all  that  was  artificial  and  hollow  in  the  lives  of  these 
leaders  of  fashion.  Gallantry,  that  frivolous  and  hypo- 
critical attitude,  bestows  upon  woman  the  mere  sem- 
blance of  pre-eminence  in  order  really  to  push  her  back 


Woman  as  the  Gentlewoman  133 

into  that  place  among  children  and  minors  which 
masculine  lordship  is  determined  she  should  occupy. 
Man,  doubly  astute  through  his  physical  and  intellectual 
ascendancy,  makes  use  of  gallantry  as  a  means  of  pro- 
tecting himself  against  the  demands  for  personal  power 
which  the  society  lady  might  choose  to  make.  In  the 
same  degree  in  which  the  contrasts  between  masculine 
and  feminine  culture  are  now  vanishing,  so,  too,  the 
sphere  once  occupied  by  the  lady  is  growing  narrower. 
From  this  sphere  all  the  great  and  solemn  problems  of 
life  are  banned,  the  salon  in  which  the  lady  reigns  is 
nothing  more  than  a  modernised  gynaeceum,  inhabited 
by  elegant  dolls  whose  first  duty  it  is  to  ornament  them- 
selves in  order  that  they  may  please. 

The  gentlewoman  purchases  her  supremacy  at  a  very 
dear  price.  In  her  endeavours  to  preserve  this  supre- 
macy she  is  forced  to  intrench  herself  behind  a  reac- 
tionary tradition.  As  the  representative  of  the  expedient 
she  has  fallen  into  a  very  doubtful  attitude  towards  all 
that  is  natural,  for  in  the  world  of  ladyhood  the  natural 
becomes  the  improper.  She  is  exceedingly  antagonistic 
towards  all  the  innovations  which  would  introduce  a 
modern  view  of  the  world  into  the  life  of  her  sex. 

In  the  very  concept  of  the  lady  there  is  something 
that  is  incompatible  with  the  concept  of  a  free  per- 
sonality. Woman,  considered  as  a  gentlewoman, 
though  apparently  elevated  to  the  supreme  peak  of  a 
beautiful  caste,  nevertheless,  considered  as  an  individual, 
leads  a  life  within  very  narrowly  constricted  limits.  It 
is  not  the  unhampered  development  of  the  individual, 
but  the  furtherance  and  preservation  of  a  convention 
which  shape  the  conditions  of  ladyhood.  The  man  of 
the  age  of  chivalry  did  not  so  much  honour  a  distinct 


134       ^  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

and  well-marked  individuality  in  the  lady  of  his  heart 
as  a  complex  of  conventional  virtues  and  excellences. 
For  this  reason  all  intercourse  between  the  lady  and  her 
knight  took  place  at  a  considerable  distance,  and  gave 
but  little  opportunity  for  a  closer  communion  of  lives. 
This  element  of  inner  alienation  is  inseparably  bound 
up  with  the  essential  nature  of  the  lady;  it  forms  a 
dividing  wall  between  the  sexes,  and  it  is  impossible  to 
push  it  aside  without  at  the  same  time  destroying 
something  of  the  intrinsic  quality  of  the  lady. 

It  is  with  the  French  Revolution,  in  which  the  rights 
of  personality  even  among  women  were  promulgated, 
that  the  ideas  of  equality  and  communality  between  man 
and  woman  begin  to  emerge  into  the  foreground. 
Knowledge  of  the  price  at  which  the  education  of  the 
lady  must  be  purchased,  renders  valueless  the  privileges 
which  are  bound  up  therein,  and  the  urging  of  certain 
individual  women  towards  a  free  self-determination 
creates  an  attitude  toward  men  which  rests  upon  wholly 
modified  assumptions.  They  set  themselves  in  opposi- 
tion to  the  unworthy  and  circumscribed  position 
which  the  law  assigns  to  the  female  sex;  but,  at 
the  same  time,  they  scorn  that  homage  of  social 
intercourse  which  arises  from  a  fantastic  conception 
of  womanhood. 

Considered  frorii  this  point  of  view  the  modern 
woman's  movement  is  worthy  of  far  more  respect  than 
is  accorded  it.  For  in  these  conceptions  the  movement 
carries  with  it  the  most  valuable  ingredient  of  a  new 
understanding  between  man  and  woman,  since  it 
elevates  into  a  system  that  which  has  long  subsisted  as 
a  sort  of  undercurrent  between  the  sexes,  and  fashions  it 
into  a  dogma  which  clarifies  it  for  the  general  mind, 


Woman  as  the  Gentlewoman  135 

and  gives  it  the  suggestive  power  by  means  of  which  it 
may  progress  in  accordance  with  its  ideals. 

Mary  Wolstonecraft,  in  her  Defence  of  the  Rights 
of  Woman^  a  book  which  contains  all  the  main  lines 
taken  up  by  the  later  woman's  movement,  had  already 
thrown  light  upon  the  great  deficiencies  which  arise 
from  the  sort  of  education  the  lady  must  undergo.  She 
comes  to  the  conclusion  that  "  it  would  be  well  if 
women  would  merely  be  pleasant  and  sensible  comrades, 
except  with  relation  to  their  lovers."  This  "  excep- 
tion," however,  indicates  a  mere  subjective  limitation. 
Coincident  with  the  transformation  in  the  social  stand- 
ing of  women,  there  occurs  a  transformation  in  the 
erotic  relationship.  A  hew  ideal  of  love  has  arisen  out 
of  the  type  of  sexual  relationship  which  is  based  upon 
comradeship  and  an  intellectual-physical  community  of 
individual  attractiveness  and  self-completion. 

The  necessary  condition  for  this  is,  to  be  sure,  a 
change  in  the  nature  of  man.  Only  those  men  whose 
psycho-sexual  constitution  compels  them  to  turn  for 
love  to  an  individual  on  an  equal  plane,  will  be  able  to 
set  up  the  idea  of  mutuality  in  the  place  which  the  idea 
of  lordship  occupied  in  primitive  relationships,  or  that 
which  the  idea  of  voluntary  subordination  occupied  in 
the  chivalrous  relationship.  In  this  type  of  love- 
comradeship  between  man  and  woman  one  is  able  to 
recognise  a  survival  of  the  antique  ideas  of  love  such  as 
lay  at  the  root  of  the  sensuous-supersensual  bonds  of 
friendship  between  men  and  youths.  That  which  Plato, 
in  his  Symposium^  depicts  as  the  loftiest  love  between 
a  younger  and  an  older  friend  is,  according  to  modern 
sensibilities,  nothing  else  than  a  representation  of  the 
noblest  hetero-sexual  relationship. 


136        A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

In  the  ideal  of  mutuality  the  woman's  movement 
has  seized  upon  one  of  the  legacies  which  the  Renais- 
sance bequeathed  to  succeeding  centuries.  The  recog- 
nition of  the  free  personality,  and  the  equal  right  of  each 
sex  to  a  free  and  unconditional  development  of  indi- 
vidual traits,  have  already  been  achieved  by  human 
society  in  those  brief  and  transitory  periods  in  which 
culture  reached  its  most  brilliant  apex. 

Therefore,  the  so-called  "complete  human  being," 
whose  shadowy  figure  one  encounters  in  the  world  of 
ideas  created  by  the  woman's  movement,  may  be  said  to 
be  inspired  by  a  somewhat  diluted;  but,  nevertheless, 
in  the  main,  quite  correct  conception  of  that  which  was 
held  to  be  a  canon  of  culture  in  Renaissance  times.  And 
the  fact  that  the  woman's  movement  did  not  accept  this 
idea  in  the  usual  course  of  historical  evolution,  but 
created  it  out  of  itself,  can  only  serve  to  make  its  value 
to  culture  still  more  authentic. 

That  gulf  separating  the  sexes  which  in  the  course 
of  European  civilisation  has  given  birth  to  so  many 
different  kinds  of  phantoms,  shining  flowers  of  the 
romantic  period,  such  as  the  cult  of  the  minnesingers, 
and  fearful  and  grotesque  abortions  of  hate  and  mad- 
ness, such  as  the  witch-trials,  now,  for  the  first  time, 
appears  to  be  bridged  over  by  the  relation  of  intersexual 
comradeship.  As  free  companions,  equipped  with  the 
same  expedients  of  civilisation,  ripe  for  mutual  under- 
standing, and  ready  to  explore  the  heights  and  depths 
of  life  together — in  such  wise  do  man  and  woman 
advance  towards  a  new  era  to  which  their  union  will 
give  a  new  significance. 

Among  modern  women  there  may  be  found  also 
those  who  believe  the  salvation  of  woman  to  lie  in  a 


Woman  as  the   Gentlewoman  1 37 

complete  separation  from  man — an  ascetic,  misanthropic 
movement,  full  of  an  arrogant  over-estimation  of 
womanhood  and  a  short-sighted  misconception  of  all 
that  woman  owes  to  the  higher  and  finer  types  of  man- 
hood. Is  it  not  possible  that  this  aversion  to  every- 
thing masculine  may  furnish  an  analogue  to  the  aver- 
sion of  early  Christian  manhood  to  everything  feminine 
— again  an  unsettled  conflict  between  the  species  and  the 
personality — whose  battleground  this  time  happens  to 
be  the  feminine  soul  ?  Though  these  women,  accord- 
ing to  their  beliefs  and  demands,  no  longer  lead  the 
life  of  the  lady,  they  are  nevertheless  still  rooted  fast 
in  the  soil  of  fine-ladyism.  They  subject  the  relation 
between  man  and  woman  to  a  criticism  based  upon  the 
assumption  that  woman  is  the  superior  being,  and  do 
not  seem  to  observe  that  this  is  nothing  more  than  an 
ingenious  demand  made  upon  the  magnanimity  of  man. 
They  betray  something  of  the  real  attitude  of  the  lady 
towards  man — towards  all  things  that  refer  to  the 
secrecies  of  their  erotic  emotions — things  which  the 
gentlewoman  of  the  old  school  took  care  to  conceal 
with  the  unbreakable  silence  of  a  great  worldly 
wisdom. 

Women  such  as  these  find  no  charm  in  the  idea  of 
a  relation  with  man  based  upon  comradeship.  But  it 
is  also  true  that  a  proportion  of  men — and,  no  doubt, 
the  greater  proportion — will  by  comradeship  under- 
stand something  quite  different  from  those  notions 
which  they  derive  from  their  relations  with  women.  At 
heart  it  is  always  the  primitive  masterly  type  which 
dominates  the  relation  between  man  and  woman.  It  is 
well-known  that  even  in  the  fairest  period  of  the  days 
of  chivalry  it  was  only  the  upper  classes,  such  as  occu- 


138        A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

pied  advantageous  positions  in  life  enabling  them  to  be 
identified  with  intellectual  refinements,  or  at  least  with 
elegant  fashions,  that  occupied  themselves  with  this, 
and  even  within  these  classes  the  adoration  of  woman 
by  no  means  extended  to  wedded  life.  It  was  not  the 
wife,  the  life-companion,  who  enjoyed  the  honours  of 
the  cult,  but  the  beloved,  the  remote  and  inaccessible 
wife  of  another. 

That  which,  above  all  things,  expresses  itself  in  these 
three  types — the  dominating,  the  knightly,  and  the 
comrade-like — is  the  psycho-sexual  individuality,  the 
peculiar,  inborn  disposition  in  the  attitude  of  the  one 
man  towards  the  one  woman.  Even  though  the  one 
type  or  the  other  may  emerge  more  pre-eminently  in 
different  epochs  of  human  civilisation,  and,  according  to 
the  general  circumstances,  give  its  character  to  the  times, 
they  nevertheless  continue  to  exist  simultaneously  side 
by  side.  The  famous  Greek  hetairae,  the  "  social  com- 
panions "  of  man,  were  the  first  to  infuse  the  erotic 
relation  with  something  of  an  intellectual  quality  by 
participating  in  the  culture  and  interests  of  man.  The 
masculine  sense  of  dominance  began  to  soften  and  refine 
itself  In  these  illicit  relations  until  finally,  in  the  spheres 
of  pleasant  social  amenities,  it  legalised  the  authority  of 
woman  in  the  name  of  the  lady. 

Now  it  seems  as  if  the  days  of  this  authority  were 
numbered.  The  concept  of  the  lady  is  beginning  to 
collapse.  Something  antiquated,  something  quixotic, 
is  beginning  to  attach  itself  to  the  idea.  This,  however, 
is  still  most  indefinite  and  unnoticeable,  and  only  visible 
in  certain  lights  and  reflexes. 

The  domestic  and  social  revolutions  which  cause  the 
functions  of  the  **  house-keeping  "  woman  to  become 


Woman  as  the  Getitlewoman  139 

daily  more  of  an  anachronism,  are  not  without  their 
effect  upon  the  existence  of  the  lady.  In  so  far  as  a 
woman  is  forced  to  earn  her  own  living,  and  thereby 
enter  into  competition  with  man,  she  ceases  to  live 
under  those  conditions  which  are  guaranteed  to  her  only 
in  the  sphere  of  social  life.  In  business  life  gallantry  as 
a  form  of  intercourse  ceases  to  exist.  A  severer  law 
and  a  more  vigorous  responsibility  reign  here,  and  inex- 
orably they  demand  other  advantages  than  those  which 
are  suited  for  a  woman's  destiny  as  a  lady. 

The  influences  of  a  changing  civilisation  are  percept- 
ible also  in  those  circles  which  appear  to  be  quite  un- 
touched by  modern  ideas — in  circles  where  the  lady 
still  holds  undisputed  sway  and  serves  as  one  of  the 
conservative  supports.  These  influences  certainly  do 
not  appear  in  the  guise  of  new  knowledge,  nor  as  self- 
conscious  demands  for  a  free  and  individual  mode  of 
life — but  quite  simply  and  under  different  aspects — as 
new  pleasures  and  pastimes  in  the  programme  of  the 
social  dame,  composed  as  it  is  of  pastimes  and  of  plea- 
sures. The  first  of  these  disguised  and  revolutionary 
elements  is  that  of  sport,  which  demands  great  physical 
exertions,  swift  and  violent  movements,  aiming  more  at 
sureness  than  at  grace,  or  perhaps  only  a  blunting  of  the 
sensibilities  which  exposes  itself  indifferently  to  all 
manner  of  minor  disfigurements  or  injuries.  All  this 
militates  against  the  orthodox  conception  of  the  lady 
who  is  presumed  to  be  a  weak  and  tender  creature,  in 
need  of  man's  protection  and  his  veneration.  That 
which  stamps  the  lady  as  a  "  higher  type  "  is  the  con- 
trast she  offers  to  the  stir  and  bustle  of  mankind;  for 
this  reason  all  that  is  comrade-like  in  the  communion 
of  the  sexes  is  already  incompatible  with  the  very  nature 


1 40        A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

of  the  ^gentlewoman.  But  it  is  precisely  in  the  matter  of 
sport  that  one  cannot  exclude  the  element  of  comrade- 
ship in  the  intercourse  between  the  sexes.  It  is  just  here 
that  it  has  won  its  most  extensive  and  astonishing 
victories.  It  would  be  possible  to  apply  a  variation  of 
Buckle's  famous  dictum  with  regard  to  the  ethical 
mission  of  the  locomotive  by  declaring  that  the  bicycle 
has  done  more  for  the  emancipation  of  woman  than  all 
the  strivings  of  the  entire  woman's  movement  taken 
together. 

Assuredly  the  concept  of  the  lady  is  beginning  to 
collapse.  And  the  results  of  this  process  of  dissolution 
of  a  historic  figure  will  naturally  soon  become  visible. 
The  gentlewoman  will  hardly  succeed  in  avoiding  the 
uncomfortable  stipulations  by  means  of  which  she  is 
given  her  privileges,  and  still  remain  in  the  enjoyment 
of  those  privileges. 

Something  very  like  a  danger,  a  threatening  possi- 
bility of  serious  losses  for  the  female  sex,  begins  to  lift 
Itself  above  the  horizon.  It  is  certainly  conceivable  that 
all  the  good  which  modern  woman  expects  to  realise 
from  the  liberty  to  determine  her  own  destiny,  may  not 
outweigh  those  advantages  which  the  female  sex  had 
enjoyed  in  the  capacity  of  the  gentlewoman.  It  is  no 
less  possible  that  the  necessity  for  competition  would 
tend,  so  far  as  the  male  element  is  concerned,  again  to 
ruin  that  refinement  of  instinct  which  manifests  itself 
as  chivalry;  and,  so  far  as  the  female  element  is  con- 
cerned, to  destroy  once  more  that  cult  of  beauty, 
harmony,  and  physical  and  spiritual  elevation  from  which 
the  gentlewoman  arose. 

Here  we  encounter  a  problem  of  civilisation. 
Women  must  overcome  the  old  forms  without  resigning 


Woman  as  the  Gentlewoman  141 

the  achievements  contained  in  these;  they  must  create 
a  new  style  of  womanhood,  a  form  of  life  which  will 
develop  organically  from  that  of  the  prevailing  form, 
in  order  to  win  room  for  that  which  the  gentlewoman 
never  was  and  never  could  be :  a  free  personality. 


WOMEN    AND    TYPES    OF    WOMEN 

I 

The  judgments  which  men  pass  upon  women  suffer 
from  the  disadvantage  that  they  are  based  upon  know- 
ledge at  second-hand  and  are  not  supported  by  woman's 
introspective  observation  of  herself.  Women  of 
superior  judgment  possess  the  faculty  of  divining  facts 
directly  from  their  own  psychology;  they  are  thus  enabled 
to  use  themselves  as  comparison,  evidence  and  substan- 
tiation. This  subjective  manner  of  analysis  lends  a 
peculiar  weight  to  their  opinions.  The  estimates  of 
"  woman  "  as  reflected  in  the  minds  of  women  such  as 
these,  must  at  all  events  prove  an  important  contribution 
to  feminine  psychology.  This,  to  be  sure,  would  possess 
only  a  theoretical  value.  A  practical  value,  such  as 
might  serve  for  a  line  of  conduct  or  a  canon  of  educa- 
tion, these  opinions  by  no  means  possess,  especially  since 
the  feminine  champions  of  specific  womanhood  have 
not  yet  reached  any  decision  as  to  just  what  is  to  be 
understood  by  this  term. 

Let  us  take  the  case  of  two  prominent  and  keen 
observers,  Lou  Andreas-Salom6  and  Laura  Marholm. 
An  attempt  made  to  compare  the  opinions  of  these  two 
women  relative  to  this  point  will  immediately  bring  us 
to  positions  in  which  the  most  opposite  peculiarities  are 


Wompfj  and  Types  of  Women  143 

considered  as  forming  the  basic  nature  of  woman, 
although  both  writers  establish  their  conception  of 
feminine  psychology  upon  physiological  hypotheses,  and 
therefore  upon  what  appear  to  be  the  most  reliable  and 
unmistakable  fundamentals. 

Whereas  Laura  Marholm  adopts  a  very  generally- 
accepted  idea  and  depicts  woman  as  a  being  uncentred 
in  herself,  without  significance,  and  unable  to  exist  alone, 
Lou  Andreas-Salome  considers  her  as  a  creature  com- 
plete and  integral  in  herself,  in  whose  original  and 
essential  being  there  is  to  be  found  both  self-sufficiency 
and  self-justification,  a  being  which,  when  compared  to 
the  male,  appears  "  like  a  part  of  some  archaic  and  lofty 
aristocracy  established  in  its  own  castle  and  estate." 
Woman,  according  to  the  Marholm  definition,  does  not 
find  her  centre  of  gravity  in  herself,  but  depends  on  man 
for  her  entire  spiritual  existence :  "  the  significance  of 
woman  is  man."  Moreover,  in  addition  to  significance, 
man  also  gives  her  form.  *'  All  that  woman  happens  to 
read  about  herself  serves  as  an  example  and  a  guide 
for  her  to  become  as  man  conceives  her.  It  is  the  nature 
of  woman  to  mould  herself  according  to  some  form 
and  to  ask  for  a  form  according  to  which  she  may  mould 
herself." 

On  the  contrary,  the  Salom^an  woman  is  likewise 
representative  of  a  very  widely-accepted  opinion.  She 
is  one  "  who  endeavours  to  realise  with  every  possible 
means  of  development  an  ever  broader,  ever  richer  un- 
folding of  her  innate  self";  she  feels  "that  satiety  of 
the  creative  repetition  of  oneself,  of  the  concentration 
of  all  forces  within  the  field  of  self-production  so  charac- 
teristic of  everything  feminine."  She  creates  a  world 
for  herself  conformable  to  the  peculiarity  of  the  female 


144       ^  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

egg-cell,  which  encloses  itself  in  a  circle  beyond  which 
it  does  not  attempt  to  penetrate.  Therefore,  even  by 
so  elemental  and  primitive  an  indication  as  this,  the 
feminine  nature  is  shown  as  partaking  of  a  fuller 
harmony,  a  more  complete  rounding  out — an  inherent 
preliminary  consummation  and  entirety." 

Laura  Marholm's  woman  is  characterised  by  the 
dependence  and  lack  of  self-reliance  which  always  accom- 
pany the  act  of  receiving  from  without :  "  she  is  unable, 
therefore,  to  break  with  convention,  for  this  is  her  only 
support."  And  the  convention  is  not  only  without,  but 
also  within  her.  "  It  constitutes  at  once  her  most  in- 
timate feminine  modesty  and  a  guide-line  for  her  feel- 
ings." But  the  woman  of  Frau  Andreas-Salome  "  is 
swayed,  far  more  deeply  than  man,  by  a  hidden  contempt 
for  what  is  traditionally  accepted.  It  is  not  the  most 
womanly  woman  who  feels  the  greatest  need  of  a  home, 
of  morality,  and  of  a  sharply-defined  sphere  in  order  to 
realise  herself  as  a  woman;  it  is  rather  an  evidence  of  her 
creative  power  that  she  is  able  to  build  up  all  this  out  of 
herself.  Paradoxical  as  it  may  sound,  one  may  neverthe- 
less declare  that  the  home,  morality,  and  their  restrictions 
exist  chiefly  for  the  sake  of  the  man."  It  is  only  because 
so  many  external  necessities  rule  over  woman  that  the 
opposite  appears  to  be  true.  Lou  Andreas-Salome  very 
emphatically  utters  a  warning  against  the  common  mis- 
conception which  would  regard  the  two  sexes  as  mere 
halves—"  as  is  the  case  with  that  popular  idea  which  con- 
siders the  feminine  as  the  passively-receptive  vessel  and 
the  masculine  as  that  of  an  actively-creative  contents." 

"The  human  being  as  woman  "  is,  according  to  the 
Salomean  concept,  a  composite  of  all  those  peculiarities 
which  may  be  adduced  from  the  physiological  demands 


Women  and  Types  of  Women  \\^ 

of  the  female  organism  and  a  modernised  analysis  of 
what  has  always  been  considered  specifically  feminine. 
Hence,  likewise,  the  opinion  of  this  writer  that  all  those 
old  existing  designations  of  woman's  nature — "  Domes- 
ticity, Religion,  Modesty,  Subjection,  Chastity,  Neat- 
ness, and  so  on,"  are  in  no  way  mere  incidental  terms, 
but,  no  matter  how  roughly  or  loosely  regarded,  symbols 
and  illustrations  of  the  true  nature  of  woman  and  her 
attributes.  According  to  Lou  Andreas-Salome,  this 
disposition  permits  of  no  complete  individualisation; 
woman  has  always  more  of  the  quality  of  the  purely 
sexual  about  her  than  has  man.  For  it  is  remarkable 
that  woman  always  has  a  closer  resemblance  to  woman 
than  man  to  man.  Thus  the  saying,  "  one  woman  is  as 
good  as  any  other,"  which  shameless  and  brutal  sen- 
suality has  used  with  regard  to  the  woman  forcibly 
possessed,  may  become  true  in  some  noble  and 
mysterious  sense.  Woman  is  the  less  individualised 
because  she  still  has  "a  direct  share  in  the  universal 
life  itself  and  the  power  to  express  herself  as  though  she 
had  become  its  personified  mouthpiece."  It  is  for  this 
reason  that  woman  in  her  exclusive  world  possesses  as 
a  constant  quality  of  soul  that  which  man,  restless,  lost, 
and  speculating  upon  the  infinite,  never  attains  save  in 
his  rarest  moments. 

The  method  of  Lou  Andreas-Salome,  which  explains 
the  conventional  in  order  to  find  in  it  points  of 
support  for  an  outlined  picture  of  a  universal  type  of 
womanhood,  precludes  the  delineation  of  the  individual 
to  such  an  extent  that  it  even  refuses  to  recognise  it  as 
an  attribute  of  woman's  nature.  This  principle  is  at 
the  same  time  the  premiss  by  which  this  method  of 
generalisation  justifies  itself. 

L 


1 46  A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

According  to  the  point  of  view  held  by  Laura 
Marholm,  this  method  of  generalisation  leads  in  itself 
ad  absurdum  simply  because  her  *'  woman  "  is  distin- 
guished by  a  more  individual  stamp  and,  instead  of  a 
mere  creature  constructed  according  to  a  scheme  of 
species,  asserts  herself  as  a  real,  essential  being.  What 
contradictions  are  united  in  this  woman,  out  of  what 
strangely  incompatible  parts  is  she  composed!  Before 
all  there  is  the  "  central  point  "  or  focus  of  woman, 
"  that  burning^  fountain  .  .  .  which  contains  woman's 
all,  her  goal,  her  genius  and  her  significance,  her 
spiritualised  and  inherent  sexuality."  Therefore,  it  is 
not  for  man  "  that  the  act  of  selection  is  of  chief  im- 
portance, but  for  woman."  To  be  able  to  make  this 
selection  with  an  unerring  delicacy  of  feeling — 
"as  in  a  waking  dream  to  choose  out  of  thousands  of 
indifferent  or  repugnant  men  the  one  organically- 
sympathetic  lover  " — that  is  considered  by  this  writer 
as  a  faculty  of  the  highest,  most  cultivated  type  of 
woman. 

But  it  is  with  astonishment  that  we  come  across  the 
passage,  *'  It  is  not  so  much  a  matter  of  importance 
whom  woman  loves  as  that  she  should  love."  We  are 
told  that  the  more  honest,  warm-hearted  and  worthy  the 
man  may  be,  in  that  same  degree  does  he  demand  a 
great  love  in  which  he  may  display  his  full  earnestness 
— whereas  woman  prefers  that  "  little  love  "  with  which 
one  plays ! 

The  most  remarkable  state  of  affairs,  however,  seems 
to  be  connected  with  the  oft-discussed  "  wildness  "  of 
woman.  It  is  alleged  that  by  means  of  this  wildness 
woman  is  more  closely  linked  to  nature  than  is  man.  It 
is  therefore  something  which  must  be  preserved  at  all 


Women  and  Types  of  Women  147 

costs.  "  The  best  and  also  the  worst  feminine  raw 
material  is  as  incapable  of  being  led  as  of  being  bred, 
of  being  refined  or  civilised  like  man — it  is  composed 
of  sheer  uncontrolledness,  recklessness,  instinct — nothing 
but  feminine  instinct." 

But  in  another  place  Laura  Marholm  speaks  of  "  the 
limitless  capability  for  adaptation,"  and  the  "  un- 
bounded suggestibility "  of  woman.  She  says : 
*'  Wherever  woman  happens  to  find  guidance,  and  thus 
experiences  confidence,  she  is  obedient.  This  is  true 
not  only  of  the  good,  but  also  of  the  bad,  woman,"  and 
she  makes  it  clear  to  men  by  lecturing  them  as  follows : 
"  You  are  able  to  make  of  us  anything  that  you  choose  : 
courtesans  and  amazons,  reasonable  beings  and  saints, 
savants  and  idiots,  wives  and  virgins,  for  we  yield  to 
every  pressure  of  your  fingers,  and  it  is  part  of  our 
nature  that  we  should  follow  after  you !  "  Nevertheless, 
in  a  third  book  of  hers,  she  withdraws  this  concession. 
In  this  book  she  discovers  "  that  it  is  woman  who  forms 
or  deforms,  distorts  or  unfolds  the  life  of  man's  sen- 
sibilities. The  soul  of  the  mother  or  the  soul  of  the 
sister  impress  their  ineffaceable  seals  upon  the  most 
impressionable  sides  of  man's  nature.  So  the  final  ques- 
tion in  the  majority  of  instances  is  not :  What  sort  of 
man.? — but:  What  sort  of  woman .f*  "  And  finally  she 
asserts :  "  It  is  through  her  children  that  the  innermost 
life  of  woman  is  determined.  Her  most  hidden  treasures 
come  to  light  .  .  .  she  grows  into  something  definite, 
whereas  she  was  formerly  something  quite  indefinite." 

In  spite  of  all  her  strenuous  endeavours  to  create  a 
consistent  and  universally  valid  type  of  "  woman," 
Laura  Marholm  nevertheless  fails  to  give  us  anything 
but   a   conglomerate  of  separate   characters  which  are 

L    2 


148        A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

scarcely  related   to   each   other   in  the  most  important 
points,  not  to  speak  of  being  identical. 

Even  the  basic  hypothesis  of  Laura  Marholm  con- 
tains, to_be  sure,  a  grave  misconception.  According  to 
this,  woman  is,  both  spiritually  and  physically,  "  a 
capsule  covering  an  emptiness  which  only  man  can  fill." 

But,  physiologically  considered,  woman  can  by  no 
means  be  described  as  a  capsule  covering  an  emptiness. 
This  capsule  has  a  most  respectable  contents;  it  produces 
an  organism  which  in  the  lower  order  of  animal  life  is  so 
independently  creative  that  out  of  its  own  potentiality, 
without  the  addition  of  any  masculine  element  what- 
soever, it  is  able  to  reproduce  and  perpetuate  life.  Laura 
Marholm  has  thus  overlooked  the  most  important  fact 
of  the  feminine  organism — the  production  of  the  ovum 
which  gives  to  woman  a  morphological  rank  equal  to 
that  of  man.  One  might,  in  passing,  observe  that  the 
Marholmian  man  who  happens  to  remark  to  his  wife  that 
he  first  created  her  from  his  rib,  is  guilty  of  a  similar 
error.  Even  according  to  the  Genesis  of  the  Bible  from 
which  he  borrows  his  illustration,  it  was  not  Adam  who 
created  Eve  from  his  rib — but  God.  Even  the  patri- 
archal view  of  things  does  not  equip  man  with  any  such 
all-embracing  power  as  this! 

Another  aspect  of  the  specifically  feminine  is  presented 
by  Ellen  Key.  Contrary  to  the  ideas  of  Lou  Andreas- 
Salome,  she  endeavours  to  preserve  for  woman  "  an  un- 
restricted freedom  of  individuality  "  despite  the  limita- 
tions imposed  upon  her  by  her  physical  nature.  This 
endeavour  to  do  justice  to  individual  distinctions  con- 
stantly runs  counter  to  the  generalising  conclusions 
which  she  is  forced  to  make  in  order  to  prove  her  case. 
In  her  hands  femininity  undergoes  so  many  changes  that 


Women  and  Types  of  Women  149 

at  length  one  is  at  a  loss  to  know  why  anything  so 
indefinite  and  so  purely  incidental  should  be  worthy  of 
further  discussion. 

Ellen  Key,  to  be  sure,  acknowledges  that  one  single 
exception  of  feminine  superiority  furnishes  an  irrefut- 
able argument  for  every  woman  in  her  demands  for  the 
fullest  freedom  in  the  control  of  her  own  destiny.  And 
yet,  in  spite  of  this,  the  purpose  of  her  investigations  is 
nothing  more  than  the  restriction  of  this  freedom,  as 
may  be  proved  by  reflecting  upon  that  which  constitutes 
the  true  nature  of  woman.  If  society,  as  Ellen  Key 
demands,  is  to  place  no  barriers  in  the  path  of  woman 
in  order  to  let  her  prove  what  Nature  intended  to  accom- 
plish with  her,  would  it  not  first  of  all  become  necessary 
to  drop  all  conventional  definitions  of  what  is  womanly 
and  what  unwomanly.'' 

What  purpose  is  served  in  showing  the  individual 
woman  how  the  great  mass  of  her  sisters  happen  to 
have  become  what  they  are,  or  in  pointing  out  to  her 
a  line  of  conduct  which  is  adduced  only  from  an  investi- 
gation of  the  average  ? 

Perhaps  such  presentations  of  the  character  of  the 
sex  are  intended  to  remind  us — with  an  eye  to  the 
antagonistic  extreme  positions  of  the  woman's  move- 
ment— that  not  all  women  are  suited  for  another  mode 
of  life  than  that  which  has  been  their  heritage.  For  it 
is  quite  possible  that  the  woman's  movement,  by  means 
of  hasty  generalisations,  may  here  and  there  have  been 
responsible  for  luring  persons  of  feeble  judgment  into 
the  wrong  paths — and  of  making  them  ambitious  of 
fulfilling  tasks  for  which  they  were  not  fitted.  Yet  these 
definitions,  derived  from  averages,  tend  at  the  same  time 
to   increase   the  strength  of   the   standards  which  the 


150       A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

traditions  of  society  and  the  State,  even  without  this, 
impose  upon  the  individual — how  greatly  at  the  expense 
of  personal  liberty  only  they  can  know  who  do 
not  happen  to  fit  the  prevailing  norm. 

Subscribing  to  the  rule  of  experience  that  the  domain 
of  the  spirit  must  be  governed  by  the  same  relations  as 
that  of  the  body,  Ellen  Key  seeks  to  find  the  funda- 
mental inequality  in  those  very  things  in  which  lie  the 
most  important  functional  differences  in  the  life  of  the 
two  sexes.  Just  as  Laura  Marholm  holds  woman  to  be 
closely  identified  with  Nature  because  of  her  "  wild- 
ness,"  so  does  Ellen  Key  attribute  this  to  her  mother- 
liness  and  to  all  that  lies  mystically  beneath  the  surface 
of  reality.  And  "  when  once  the  power  of  motherliness 
emerges  on  earth  in  all  its  intrinsic  glory,  then  shall 
woman,  in  a  deeper  significance  than  ever  before,  bring 
forth  a  new  salvation  for  the  world  " — that  is  to  say, 
when  woman  has  once  learned  how  to  apply  to  a  general 
public  sphere  of  action  that  motherliness  which  she  has 
hitherto  devoted  solely  to  private  and  personal  interests. 

This  sphere,  according  to  Ellen  Key's  own  conclu- 
sions, has  always  belonged  to  man;  and  one  is  unable 
to  realise  how  the  historical  development  of  a  specific 
feminine  power  is  suddenly  to  change  its  own  course 
and  produce  an  essentially  different  form  of  culture. 

Supported  by  this  criterion  of  motherliness,  Ellen  Key 
divides  all  woman,  from  an  intellectual  viewpoint,  into 
two  races :  women  who  love,  and  women  who  cannot 
love.  By  this  means  she  avoids  being  compelled  to  deny 
the  efficiency  of  a  very  frequent  and  very  characteristic 
type  of  woman,  the  egoistic-frigid — as  is  the  case  with 
Laura  Marholm,  who  sets  up  a  sort  of  intensified 
eroticism  as  the  criterion  of  femininity. 


Women  and  Types  of  Women  151 

Among  those  women  who  cannot  love  there  are  to 
be  found  "  bewitching  ephemeral  natures,  or  gifted 
artistic  souls,  or  great  sorceresses  of  the  senses,  some- 
times cold,  reasonable  beings,  at  other  times,  little, 
narrow  and  commonplace  souls." 

Whatever  they  may  be,  it  is  not  from  them  that 
humanity  need  expect  any  addition  to  the  feminine  life- 
values.  That  may  be  expected  only  from  the  women 
who  can  love.  "  For  such  women  the  one  thing  that 
determines  life  is  their  destiny  as  wife  or  mother,  sister 
or  daughter,  friend  or  helper."  Great  individual  in- 
equalities may  be  found  even  among  these  women.  For 
some  of  them  erotic  love  is  the  highest  of  all  things, 
others  again  are  more  profoundly  affected  by  maternal 
love,  still  others  feel  most  deeply  of  all  that  universal 
human  sympathy  which  signifies  motherliness  in  the 
widest  application  of  the  word.  But  with  all  of  them 
it  is  the  power  of  personal  surrender  which  gives  them  a 
distinctive  racial  mark.  By  means  of  this  they  are  able 
to  recognise  one  another  from  the  North  Pole  to  the 
South." 

It  is  an  old,  well-known  trait  of  the  specifically  fem- 
inine which  lies  at  the  root  of  this :  the  personal 
surrender,  the  capacity  for  sacrifice,  nay  more,  the  very 
need  of  sacrifice.  In  the  soul-life  of  many  women  the 
idea  of  sacrifice  plays  a  prominent  part;  they  find  a  moral 
atonement  and  inner  contentment  in  an  action  only  when 
at  the  same  time  they  have  been  given  an  opportunity 
to  overcome  their  proper  ego  and  its  demands.  They 
do  not  so  much  wish  directly  to  assert  their  own  person- 
alities as  to  make  room  for  another  personality.  It  may 
indeed  be  true  that  the  nature  of  women  is  really  most 
characteristically  expressed  by  this  idiosyncrasy  of  theirs. 


152         A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

But  perhaps  this  peculiarity  is  to  be  ascribed  to  nothing 
more  than  a  mere  product  of  civihsation  and  to  the 
circumstance  that  women,  standing  in  the  dependent 
and  servile  relation  of  a  secondary  sex  to  that  of  the 
male,  are  always  valued  according  to  their  dependence, 
or  again  to  the  fact  that  because  of  their  susceptibility 
to  suggestion  they  are  more  easily  impressed  by  the 
prevalent  religious  laws.  The  ideas  of  sacrifice  and  self- 
denial  are,  as  is  well  known,  given  the  highest  rank  in 
the  Christian  religious  world;  they  represent  the  noblest 
moral  values.  These  ideas,  to  be  sure,  originated  with 
men  as  general  regulations  without  regard  to  sex — a 
fact  which,  like  the  entire  Christian  world  of  ideas  in 
its  symptomatic  significance,  is  altogether  too  little  re- 
garded by  the  defenders  of  a  specific  psychology  of  sex. 
It  is  also  to  be  feared  that  in  the  "universal  human 
sympathy,  which  signifies  motherliness  in  its  widest  ap- 
plication "  the  social  and  religious  geniuses  among  men 
have  long  ago  left  women  far  behind. 

Personal  surrender  in  itself  is  not  always,  as  Ellen  Key 
seems  to  think,  a  reliable  basis  for  the  classification  of 
those  women  whose  racial  mark  it  is  supposed  to  be. 
Resignation  to  motherhood  does  not  always  signify  a 
symptom  of  feminine  "  unselfishness."  According  to  the 
entire  nature  of  their  beings,  many  women  who  are 
mothers  belong  not  to  the  altruistic-sentimental- 
sacrificial  type  of  Ellen  Key,  but  to  the  egoistic-frigid. 
The  narrow  physical  connection  between  mother  and 
child  enables  them  to  feel  the  child  as  an  appendage  of 
their  own  organism,  an  appendage  on  which  they  lavish 
their  love  as  upon  themselves,  because  they  are  not  as 
yet  conscious  of  it  as  a  separate  and  distinct  being. 

Instead  of  asserting  that  woman  had  no  centre  in 


Women  and  Types  of  Women  153 

herself,  one  might  with  equal  justice  hold  that  she 
is  the  most  self-centred  of  all  beings  and  her  own  justi- 
fication far  more  than  man.  All  depends  upon  the  type 
of  woman  that  is  understood  by  the  inclusive  term 
*' woman."  Who  does  not  know  to  what  a  degree  the 
cult  of  the  person,  the  self-love,  verging  upon  self- 
deification,  sometimes  reaches  with  certain  women }  In 
that  type  which  Ellen  Key  describes  as  being  incapable 
of  loving,  this  element  of  surrender,  this  peculiarity 
which  is  supposed  to  be  so  inseparably  bound  up  with 
female  psychology,  is  not  to  be  found.  In  spite  of  this 
— or  perhaps  just  because  of  it — this  type  represents  the 
mightiest  and  most  dangerous  aspect  of  womanhood — 
that  of  a  great,  wild  egotism,  restricted  by  no  social 
instincts  and  equipped  with  all  the  power  of  a  primitive 
force.  Should  one  attempt  to  classify  specific  woman- 
hood, according  to  the  power  which  it  exerts  in  life, 
then  one  is  forced  to  give  first  place,  not  to  the  erotic- 
eccentric  type — since  the  inward  dependence  of  woman 
upon  man  could  never  signify  power  for  her — nor  to 
the  altruistic-sentimental,  which,  though  influenced  by 
ideas  of  social  reform,  is  only  a  more  moderate  variation 
of  the  dependent  erotic  type  of  femininity — but  to  the 
egoistic-frigid  type. 

These  women  do  not  usually  emerge  from  the 
boundaries  of  the  conventional,  for  many  of  the  well- 
accredited  traits  of  the  "  real  woman  "  closely  coincide 
with  their  inclinations  and  their  needs.  The  drastic  law 
of  chastity  is  something  which  fits  itself  like  a  perfect 
form  to  their  erotic  unsusceptibility — just  as  that  of 
religiosity  suits  their  distaste  for  the  plebeian-mascuHne 
manner  of  thought;  the  duties  of  the  domestic  hearth 
satisfy    their    feelings    of    self-suflBciency;    the    social 


154        ^   Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

position  of  a  lady  gratifies  their  innate  need  for  domin- 
ance and  superior  place.  The  life  led  by  the  lady  of 
fashion  presupposes,  and  in  so  far  as  it  is  not  of  man's 
direct  creating,  is  also  produced  by  the  egotistic-frigid 
type.  For  that  reason  Ellen  Key's  declaration  that  no 
enrichment  of  the  feminine  life-values  may  be  expected 
from  women  who  cannot  love,  does  not  appear  to  rest 
upon  a  very  sound  foundation. 

If  the  beautiful,  flowery  veil  which  the  art  of  fiction 
has  cast  over  woman — as  she  is  revealed  by  Lou  Andreas- 
Salome — be  lifted,  then  it  is  likely  that  traces  of  this  sort 
of  femininity  may  be  discovered  beneath  it,  one  and  the 
same  original  image,  seen  now  in  a  warm  and  idealistic 
illumination,  now  in  a  colder  light.  This  figure  does 
not  belie  its  affinity  with  that  unapproachable,  unseiz- 
able  womanhood  which  shapes  a  world  entirely  for  itself 
— a  world  towards  which  man,  a  restless,  careering  being 
without  home  and  without  estate,  is  for  ever  powerless 
and  for  ever  alien. 

In  this  way  separate  feminine  individualities  are 
capable  of  being  arranged  into  groups  without  the  neces- 
sity of  referring  to  other  sources  than  those  of  the 
mutually  irreconcilable  statements  as  to  "  the  true  nature 
of  woman  "  which  are  given  forth  by  women  themselves. 
What  is  most  remarkable  is  that  the  women  who 
originate  these  opinions  do  not  observe  or  do  not  wish 
to  observe,  the  differences  that  exist  between  their 
various  fundamental  conceptions.  That  woman  and 
woman  may  be  all  one,  as  Lou  Andreas-Salome  declares, 
appears  simply  incomprehensible,  coming  as  it  does  from 
the  lips  of  a  most  uncommon  woman. 

Certainly  differences  so  great  exist  among  women, 


Women  and  Types  of  Women  155 

that  the  understanding  which  arises  from  the  mere  com- 
munity of  sex  is,  in  many  cases,  entirely  suspended. 
That  searching,  masonic  look  of  which  Laura  Marholm 
speaks,  a  look  by  means  of  which  women  among  them- 
selves are  supposed  to  read  the  "  secret  cyphers  of  their 
own  experience,"  is  something  which  is  of  effect  only 
among  women  of  the  same  class — but  in  cases  of  greater 
divergence,  such  as  the  differences  that  exist  in  the  very 
core  of  personality  and  the  mystery  of  essential  being, 
it  fails. 

Every  human  being  of  any  individuality  is  aware 
that  there  exists  a  type  to  which  he  belongs,  to  which 
he  can  make  himself  understood,  with  which  he  has 
something  in  common;  and  also  another  type,  the  vast 
inaccessible  majority  which,  no  matter  how  clearly  he 
may  speak,  does  not  understand  his  language,  and  for 
which  he  must  for  ever  remain  a  closed  book.  Nor 
does  this  line  of  division  always  run  parallel  with  sex. 
In  particular,  women  who  are  intellectually  far  advanced 
usually  find  their  affinities  among  men.  This  is  not  only 
true  with  regard  to  intellectual  instances,  but  in  far 
deeper  things  they  find  more  points  of  contact  with  them 
than  with  the  members  of  their  own  sex. 

II 

No. doubt  it  is  in  the  erotic  specialisation  of  type  that 
we  must  search  for  that  inmost  essential  germ  which 
either  separates  human  beings  or  brings  them  together. 
All  other  divergences,  such  as  those  created  by  tem- 
perament, degree  of  intellectuality,  direction  of  the  will, 
in  short,  all  those  innumerable  variations  which  arise  in 
a  single  individual's  elements  of  personality,  are  rooted 


156        A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

far  less  deeply  than  this.     Not  even  the  difference  of 
sex  is  more  profound. 

Bourget,  whose  book,    The  Physiology  of  Modern 
Love,  is  written  with  the  most  unprejudiced  powers  of 
observation,  declares  that  among  the  lies  which  women 
inflict  upon  men  that  of  being  sexually  awakened  through 
love  is  by  far  the  most  common.     The  incentive  to  this 
falsehood  lies  apparently  in  the  fact  that,  consonant  with 
certain  prejudices,  this  sexual  awakening  is  looked  upon 
as  a  moral  obligation.     With  man  the  sexual  moment 
is  allowed  to  manifest  itself  without  disguise  as  a  bare 
impulse  which,  for  its  transient  gratification,  is  content 
with  the  generative  act  committed  upon  an  individual 
of  the  opposite  sex;  but  in  the  feminine  consciousness, 
the  sexual  moment  is  supposed  to  appear  only  in  the 
foj-m  of  love,  that  is  to  say,  it  must  first  be  aroused  by 
a  particular  man.     With  respect   to   the   true  state  of 
affairs,  women  usually  deceive  not  only  men,  but  also 
themselves.     The  power  of  moral  prejudices  and  the 
forcible   suppression   of   natural   instincts   which    these 
entail  is  so  vast  in  this  direction  that  it  may  be  doubted 
whether  anyone,  even  among  physicians,  is  able  to  read 
clearly   into  those  inscrutable  depths  of   the  feminine 
soul.    When  Bourget  speaks  of  women  who  in  all  things 
that  pertain  to  love  possess  the  tendencies  of  man,  that 
is,  women  whose  sex  exists  as  "  a  subordinate,  equally- 
divided  life  at  one  with  the  intellect  and  outside  the 
heart,"  he  touches  upon  a  phenomenon  which  is  con- 
sidered as  an  "  exception,"  not  so  much  because  of  its 
rarity  as  because  it  departs  from  the  norm  set  up  by 
bourgeois   respectability.      Separate   female   individuals 
differ    so    considerably    from    one    another    on     this 
score  alone  that  it   is   impossible   any   longer  to  give 


Women  and  Types  of  Women  i^J 

credence  to  the  idea  that  an  identity  of  personality  must 
perforce  accompany  an  identity  of  sex. 

It  is,  however,  not  necessary  to  confine  oneself  to  such 
exceptions  to  woman's  nature  in  order  to  meet  with 
vital  contradictions  which  arise  precisely  where  the  uni- 
versally feminine  rests,  apparently,  upon  the  most  reliable 
basis  of  teleological  sex  character.  Even  the  hetero- 
geneous types  of  women  which  we  have  just  observed 
are  in  the  last  analysis  irreconcilably  separated  from  one 
another  by  means  of  erotic  idiosyncrasies. 

There  exists  a  force  which,  above  all  things,  deter- 
mines the  personal  life  and  historical  position  of  woman 
— the  feeling  of  dependence.  There  is  no  doubt  that 
this  bespeaks  an  inner  need  which  arises  from  the  nature 
of  a  certain  type  of  women.  And  the  origin  of  this 
feeling  of  dependence  just  as  unmistakably  takes  its 
rise  in  the  realm  of  the  erotic. 

Such  women  have  need  of  a  support,  a  guidance,  and 
a  law  dictated  to  them  by  a  superior  will.  Man  is 
truly  their  sole  significance,  their  head,  their  proprietor, 
and  the  idea  of  subjecting  themselves  to  his  physical 
and  intellectual  dominance  sets  free  emotions  of  erotic 
joy.  It  is  for  this  reason  that  they  love  the  strong  hand 
with  power  to  command  and  forbid,  threaten  and  compel. 
It  is  also  these  women  who  cause  the  man  of  their  hearts 
to  cling  to  the  illusion  that  they  are  his  own  handiwork 
and  creation;  for  they  are  governed  to  such  a  degree 
by  the  suggestive  power  of  his  personality  that  they 
entirely  mould  themselves  to  that  pattern  which  best 
suits  his  taste.  In  them  the  teleological  sex-nature  of 
woman  becomes  most  unqualifiedly  apparent;  their  entire 
personality  is  penetrated  and  constantly  absorbed  by  it. 

Women  of  this  nature  form  a  sort  of  guarantee  of 


158         A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

man's  peace,  if  not  entirely  of  his  happiness.  It  is  to 
this  also  that  one  must  look  for  the  reason  why  this  type 
of  the  feminine  is  always  valued  so  highly.  Woman 
herself  need  expect  but  little  benefit  from  such  a  type. 
One  might  rather  say  that  something  tragic  is  visible  in 
her,  a  predestination  to  incalculable  sorrows,  to  endless 
fears  and  tortures.  In  a  great  many  cases  the  life  of 
such  women  is  nothing  more  than  a  sequestered  repose- 
fulness  under  the  shelter  of  a  wise  and  protecting  power. 
But  it  is  too  often  the  case  that  by  virtue  of  the  attrac- 
tion which  opposites  possess  for  each  other,  they  fall 
into  the  hands  of  violent,  intractable  and  passionate 
men,  unto  whom,  because  of  their  dependence,  they 
surrender  themselves  at  discretion.  Who  does  not 
know  such  weak,  patient,  gentle  and  tender  wives,  who 
tremble  before  their  husbands  as  before  a  cataclysm — 
and  are  defenceless  against  their  jealousy,  their  sus- 
picion, their  black  moods  and  irascibility .'' 

It  is  the  women  of  a  sanguine  temperament  who 
escape  most  easily  in  this  matter,  those  light-hearted, 
superficial  natures,  adapted  to  playfulness  and  toying, 
to  craft  and  feints,  those  bird-and-puppet  souls,  mis- 
tresses of  back-door  and  alcove  tactics,  who,  clever  and 
adroit,  are  versed  in  all  the  arts  of  flattery,  knowing  well 
how  to  take  advantage  of  man's  "  weak  moment." 
They  are  all  suflBciently  described  and  well  known  as 
"  woman,"  although  apart  from  their  erotic  subordina- 
tion, they  have  little  or  nothing  in  common.  Many  of 
them  are  exceedingly  reticent  women,  who  seldom  dis- 
close anything  concerning  the  secrecies  and  dark  hidden 
spots  of  their  soul-life — not  even  to  themselves;  others, 
again,  are  great  prattlers  who  babble  forth  everything, 
shamelessly  revealing  both  themselves  and  the  man  in 


Women  and  Types  of  Women  159 

whom  they  place  their  faith.  Sometimes,  too,  it  is  an 
observable  fact  that  the  subjective  illusions  which  arise 
from  the  erotic  predisposition  are  stronger  than  the  per- 
ception of  real  conditions.  The  husband  is  not  always 
the  stern  master  and  arbiter  his  wife  imagines  him  to 
be;  but  she  loves  the  strong  hand — and  consequently 
he  must  possess  it. 

These  women  directly  demand  oppression,  even  when 
they  must  suffer  under  it.  Just  as  they  look  upon  jealousy 
as  a  proof  of  love — and  no  doubt  because  the  jealousy 
of  the  man  infuses  them  with  a  fear  which  gives  them 
power  to  resist  temptations  and  serves  as  a  substitute 
for  the  lack  of  personal  will-power — so,  in  like  fashion, 
they  find  a  certain  pleasure  in  even  more  violent  out- 
bursts, inasmuch  as  these,  being  an  expression  of  fighting 
manhood,  serve  to  increase  their  feeling  of  safety. 
Wherever  customs  are  primitive,  as  in  a  peasant  popu- 
lation, even  blows  are  regarded  as  a  proof  of  the  genuine 
affection  of  a  man — as  may  be  shown  by  the  well-known 
anecdote  of  the  weeping  woman  who,  when  asked  the 
cause  of  her  being  so  inconsolable,  declared  that  her 
husband  no  longer  loved  her,  for  he  had  not  given  her 
a  beating  for  an  entire  week. 

Jacobsen,  in  his  Maria  Gruhhe^  has  depicted  this 
feeling  to  which  primitive  womankind  is  subject  in  the 
character  of  a  woman  who  descends  from  the  height  of 
society  into  its  deepest  depths  in  order  to  belong  to  the 
man  of  her  heart.  One  day,  when  he,  the  former  servant, 
is  giving  her  a  thrashing,  she  is  amazed  to  discover  that 
no  feeling  of  raging  hate  arises  in  her,  and  she  continues 
to  love  him  above  all  things  as  a  man  who  is  deterred  by 
nothing  in  the  world  when  it  comes  to  having  his  will. 

Moreover,  the  type  of  erotic  subordination,  the  type 


1 6o        A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

of  woman  which — if  we  are  able  to  correlate  the 
numerous  contradictions  of  Laura  Marholm,  is  presented 
by  her — is  embodied  and  glorified  in  countless  figures 
and  in  literature — the  best  known  and  most  characteristic 
being  Katchen  von  Heilbronn.  This  type  may  be 
regarded  as  the  average,  the  most  ordinary,  the  type 
which  is  usually  understood  when  one  speaks  of 
"  woman." 

And  yet  there  is  evidence  that  this  is  neither  the  most 
common,  nor  the  "  normal,"  nor  the  essential  type  of 
woman. 

The  supposition  that  the  emotional  life  of  the  female 
sex  is  first  determined  by  the  personality  of  the  man  is 
no  less  frequent  than  the  assumption  that  woman  does 
not  seek  in  man  a  personality  so  much  as  a  father  for 
her  child.  Many  declare  that  the  passion  of  maternity 
so  wholly  fills  the  soul  of  woman  that  only  a  secondary 
place  is  left  for  man.  For  instance,  to  cite  Krafft-Ebing  : 
"  Whereas  man  loves  first  the  woman,  and  only  in  a 
secondary  sense  the  mother  of  his  children,  woman  places 
the  father  of  her  child  in  the  foreground  of  her  con- 
sciousness and  only  after  that  the  man  as  husband." 
Or,  to  quote  Lombroso  :  "  The  love  of  woman  for  man 
is  at  root  nothing  more  than  a  secondary  quality  of 
motherhood."  According  to  Arno  Garborg  :  "  Woman 
does  not  love  as  we  do.  Her  inclinations  prove  that 
inasmuch  as  a  father  is  necessary  for  her  child,  it  is  not 
so  overwhelmingly  important  if  it  be  this  man  or  that 
man."    Many  others  might  be  quoted. 

In  so  far  as  the  maternal  women  belong  to  the  altru- 
istic-sentimental order  of  their  species,  they  have  a  close 
erotic  aflBnity  to  the  subordinated  women,  but  in  so  far 
as   they   approximate  to   the   egoistic-frigid   type,    the 


Women  and  Types  of  Women  i6i 

differences  in  their  relations  to  man  increase  considerably 
as  well  as  those  divergences  which  separate  them  from 
their  sisters.  That  woman  who  devotes  her  life  to  an 
erotic  surrender  to  a  man  can  never  hope  to  be  under- 
stood in  this  connection  by  a  woman  whose  life  interests 
are  concentrated  in  motherhood.  The  reason  why  the 
contradiction  which  prevails  here  is  not  brought  more 
conspicuously  into  the  light  is  due  only  to  the  want  of 
reflection  among  ordinary  women  and  to  the  similarity 
of  the  conditions  which  are  created  by  a  common  sphere 
of  life-interests. 

Those  women  whose  motherliness  is  infused  with  a 
strain  of  the  egoistic-frigid  type  do  not  feel  themselves 
dependent  like  the  women  of  the  erotic  submissive  sort : 
with  regard  to  man  they  have  a  lesser  power  of  assimila- 
tion and  greater  self-reliance,  because  their  own  centre 
of  gravity  does  not  coincide  with  his.  At  times,  no 
doubt,  owing  to  the  superior  will  of  some  man,  they 
are  plunged  into  painful  conflicts  with  their  passions, 
but  more  frequently  they  are  enabled  by  means  of  the 
will  and  maternal  instinct  to  bring  some  man  of  feebler 
instincts  inside  the  yoke.  They  may  be  recognised  by 
the  fact  that  they  regard  the  children  as  mainly  the 
property  of  the  mother,  flesh  of  her  flesh,  blood  of  her 
blood,  brought  forth  by  her  with  a  thousand  pangs  and 
sacrifices,  and  that  they  consider  the  husband  to  have 
only  a  small  and  transitory  share  in  them,  such  as  was 
his  at  their  begetting.  The  instincts  and  the  interests 
of  these  women  are  widely  separated  from  man's;  they 
feel,  generally,  no  great  desire  for  a  really  intimate  com- 
munity of  life  with  him,  and,  despite  the  intimacies 
of  wedlock,  it  is  only  in  an  external  sense  that  they  share 
his  life. 


M 


1 62  A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

That  which  gives  these  women  such  a  supreme  ele- 
mentary power  over  man  is  the  combination  of  in- 
dividual egotism  with  the  generative  impulse;  so  closely 
do  they  feel  themselves  one  with  their  child  that  this 
appears  to  give  them  a  greater  participation  in  the 
"  universal  life  of  Nature,"  The  preponderance  of  their 
instinctive  life  gives  rise  to  the  appearance  that  woman 
stands  closer  to  Nature  than  does  man,  and  this  exerts 
a  powerful  erotic  charm  upon  those  very  men  who  suffer 
from  too  great  a  cultivation  of  the  intellect. 

With  respect  to  "  moral  "  rank,  this  type  of  woman 
is  not  to  be  given  so  lofty  a  place  as  masculine  opinion 
accords  her.  Otherwise  there  would  be  no  ground  for 
the  supposition  that  the  female  sex  is  so  closely  identi- 
fied with  that  aspect  of  the  generative  life  which  mani- 
fests itself  in  love.  The  fact  that  love  is  exclusively 
bestowed  upon  a  certain  person  for  the  sake  of  that 
person  alone — that  is  the  first  thing  which  distinguishes 
the  relation  of  love  from  a  mere  union  for  the  purpose 
of  propagation. 

This  peculiar  characteristic  of  woman  might  even 
contain  a  certain  danger  for  man — at  least,  with  regard 
to  his  paternal  prerogatives.  It  would  not  be  impossible 
that  as  soon  as  the  female  sex  obtained  social  power,  this 
type  of  woman  would  force  man  in  his  position  as  a 
father  decidedly  into  the  background.  Luckily  for  man, 
devotion  to  motherhood  is  usually  accompanied  by  that 
passivity  which  is  part  of  the  primitive  sex-character  of 
woman,  and  precludes  all  independent  action  along  the 
lines  of  a  general  idea. 

Only  the  extreme  type  of  egoistic-frigid  femininity 
emerges  beyond  the  boundaries  of  this  primitive  sex- 
character.     Is  not  an  "  insatiable  desire  for  dominion  " 


Women  and  Types  of  Women  163 

held  to  be  one  of  the  ruling  passions  of  woman's  life? 
Is  not  woman,  as  portrayed  by  Lou  Andreas-Salome, 
a  being  established  entirely  in  herself  and  thus  quite 
independent  of  man  ?  Is  not  the  prototype  of  Mrs. 
Egerton  to  be  found  in  that  woman  to  whom  no  man's 
love  has  ever  been  able  to  give  a  complete  inward 
satisfaction — the  woman  who  considers  herself  as  the 
"  flower  of  humanity,  the  crown  of  creation,"  and  to 
whom  man  is  only  the  "accidental  by-product"?  To 
such  women  man  in  his  best  aspects  appears  as  a  "  great 
comic  child  "  at  whom  they  laugh  in  their  serene  sense 
of  superiority,  but  in  his  worse  aspects  as  "  an  animal 
with  primitive  instincts,"  or  even,  at  the  very  worst,  as 
a  "  man-beast."  And  their  warning  runs  :  "  Hold  thy 
soul  fast  in  thy  hand  and  do  not  pledge  it  to  any  man." 

In  this  type  we  are  able  to  discover  something  which 
may  be  compared  to  the  feeling  of  lordship  and 
superiority  which  is  considered  to  be  the  pre- 
rogative of  the  masculine  soul.  In  its  harshest  form 
this  kind  of  femininity  is  not  very  far  removed  from 
man-hating;  the  relationship  which  exists  between  such 
femininity  and  its  corresponding  masculinity  reminds 
one  of  the  sort  of  love  of  which  Nietzsche  said  that  "  in 
its  means  it  meant  the  war,  and  in  its  motive  the  mortal 
enmity  of  the  sexes." 

This  paradox,  to  be  sure,  throws  no  light  upon  the 
nature  of  love,  but  only  upon  the  nature  of  the  sexual 
relationships  as  they  are  reflected  in  the  abysses  of  con- 
sciousness. Women,  no  less  than  men,  feel  that  great 
attraction  which  the  exercise  of  personal  authority  brings, 
and  the  most  common  vice  of  femininity,  coquetry, 
originates  in  this  desire  for  power.  Nature  has  given 
man  the  physical  force  of  his  sexuality,  from  which  he 

M   2 


1 64  A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

derives  the  consciousness  of  his  pre-eminence.  The  chief 
art  of  femininity  consists  in  the  disarming  of  this  ele- 
mental force  by  means  of  an  exquisite  and  sensual  culti- 
vation and  the  reversal  of  the  primitive  sex  relationship 
■which  exists  between  the  conqueror  and  his  prey.  The 
amorous,  wanton  element  which  is  so  questionable  a 
trait  in  the  average  woman  appears  as  a  product  of  the 
latent  war  in  which  woman  pits  her  sexual  power  against 
that  of  man,  in  order  to  subdue  the  subduer. 

The  wanton  element  is  a  relatively  harmless  peculiarity 
in  the  womankind  that  is  erotically  subservient,  since 
it  is  only  an  expression  of  a  vanity  which  contents  itself 
with  the  desire  to  please,  without  desiring  to  rule :  but 
when  coupled  with  an  egoistic-frigid  type  of  being,  it 
gives  to  the  woman,  who  in  addition  possesses  the 
necessary  sensual  appeal,  a  power  which  is  greater  than 
that  of  any  other  human  creature. 

The  special  and  significant  feature  of  this  type  of 
femininity  is  the  fact  that  it  does  not  wish  to  establish 
the  superiority  of  woman  on  the  sexual  power  of  the 
wanton  element,  but  upon  an  independence  of  man 
which  may  be  able  to  free  her  from  her  sexual  coldness, 
and  give  her  room  for  the  unfolding  of  her  intellect 
and  soul. 

But  the  superior  intellects  found  in  the  female  sex 
do  not  all  come  under  this  head.  Sometimes  we  discover 
quite  another  type  among  them — such  as  the  women 
of  whom  Laura  Marholm  declares — certainly  with  a 
confusion  of  cause  and  effect — that  they  are  "  sick  with 
that  inner  cleavage  which  the  woman's  movement  first 
brought  into  the  world."  It  is  truly  one  of  the  weaker 
aspects  of  the  woman's  movement  that  it  endeavours  to 
trace  the  entire  instinct  for  subordination  in  the  feminine 


Women  and  Types  of  Women  165 

soul  to  influences  of  education,  and  refuses  to  recognise 
its  erotic  basis — but  the  roots  of  the  conflict  in  which 
these  women  sufi^er  pierce  more  deeply  into  the  constitu- 
tion of  the  soul  than  does  the  power  of  theoretical 
opinions.  That  development  of  woman  as  an  inde- 
pendent personality  of  which  the  strivings  of  modern 
women  are  the  expression,  is  attended  in  some  cases  by 
a  dyscrasy  of  the  feminine  being — a  bad  mixture  of  the 
tendencies  of  the  female  striving  for  sexual  subordina- 
tion and  the  tendencies  of  her  personality  striving  for 
independence.  Such  women,  by  reason  of  their  erotic 
peculiarity,  look  for  these  very  qualities  in  the  man  of 
their  choice  which  they  are  least  able  to  endure  in  their 
extra-sexual  life.  As  women  they  demand  that  which 
as  personalities  they  abhor.  Their  sexual  nature  craves 
the  lordship  and  dominance  of  the  man,  because  their 
erotic  emotions  may  be  aroused  only  through  the  idea 
of  being  mastered  and  subservient,  but  their  will  towards 
self-assertion  resists  the  tendency  to  subjection  as  soon  as 
its  consequences  beyond  the  erotic  sphere  become 
palpable.  For  such  there  is  no  path  that  leads  to  a 
harmonious  relationship  on  the  basis  of  sexuality.  They 
are  doomed  to  unhappiness — like  all  other  human  beings 
in  whom  occurs  an  inner  rift  or  discord. 

The  signs  of  this  dyscrasy,  as  yet  observed  so  little, 
despite  the  fact  that  it  very  often  produces  the  fatality 
in  ill-starred  love  aff^airs,  may  be  traced  in  the  destiny 
of  many  famous  women,  such  as  Mary  Wollstonecraft, 
Marie  Baschkirtzeff,  and,  perhaps  most  plainly,  in  the 
case  of  Sonia  Kowalevska. 

Attempts  have  been  made  to  explain  their  fate  on  the 
score  of  the  maladjustment  that  presumably  of  necessity 
arises  out  of  the  intellectual  strivings  and  the  natural 


1 66  A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

activity  of  woman.  But  is  there  not  in  this  a  miscon- 
ception  of  the  deeper  causes  ?  Happiness  in  love,  in  so 
far  as  it  is  not  conditioned  by  external  circumstance, 
depends  essentially  upon  an  inner  balance,  that  of  an 
agreement  between  the  erotic  nature  and  the  other  aims 
and  impulses  of  the  individual  life.  That  love  in 
woman's  world  must  perforce  manifest  itself  as  a  neces- 
sary feature  of  subordination,  is  an  arbitrary  assump- 
tion and  is  true  only  of  those  women  who  are  unable 
to  lift  their  erotics  above  the  primitive  teleological  sex- 
nature. 

For  there  exist  many  women  to  whom  love  by  no 
means  implies  any  surrender  of  personal  liberty.     The 
idea  of  the  strong  hand  is  as  abhorrent  to  them  as  it  is 
fascinating  to  others — but  not  because  they  are  incapable 
of  any  personal  surrender.     Not  the   degree,   but  the 
manner  of  the  surrender  is  the  principal  thing.     It  is 
the  custom  to  qualify  the  difference  between  the  mascu- 
line and  the  feminine  manner  of  love  by  asserting  that 
woman  loves  with  complete  self-resignation  and  man 
with  complete   self-assertion.     This  differentiation  be- 
comes totally  invalid  in  the  cases  under  consideration. 
In  place  of  the  subjective  we  have  a  mutual  relation 
based  upon  more  complete  expression  of  the  being — a 
mutuality  in  which  considerations  of  species  are  out- 
weighed  by  purely    individual    ones.     The  subjective 
ideal  in  which  the  particular  erotic  nature  of  any  person 
is  reflected  assumes  with  women  such  as  these  the  form 
of  liberty.     The  assumption  so  joyfully  proclaimed  by 
them  is  no  longer  that  of  service  on  the  one  side  and 
of  lordship  on  the  other,  but  that  of  equality.    Natures 
such   as   these   are  worthy  of   the   beautiful   words   of 
Richard  Wagner,  that  the  love  of  strong  natures  cele- 


Women  and   Types  of  Women  167 

brates  itself  in  the  "  free  surrender  unto  him  who  does 
not  choose  to  compel  us." 

Such  women  are  easily  converted  into  man-haters 
when  unfavourable  circumstances  accidentally  bring 
them  into  contact  with  men  of  a  dominating  kind.  The 
current  expressions  with  regard  to  man  as  the  master  of 
woman,  and  the  duty  of  woman  to  subject  herself  and  to 
serve,  frequently  bewilder  and  disturb  them  during  the 
earliest  period  of  youth,  until  they  are  overcome  by 
an  ascetic  repugnance  against  all  masculine  love.  It  is 
only  when  their  personalities  have  become  independently 
developed  beyond  the  prevailing  standards  and  they 
grow  aware  that  every  free  human  being  must  shape 
his  life  according  to  the  laws  of  his  soul;  or  when, 
perchance,  some  fortunate  encounter  teaches  them  that 
individual  differentiation  makes  quite  a  different  being 
of  the  one  man  than  that  which  they  judged  him  to  be 
in  the  mass,  that  they  once  more  feel  a  harmony  between 
themselves  and  the  outer  world. 

It  is  these  women  who  are  farthest  removed  from 
the  teleological  sex-character  of  femininity.  Superficial 
observation  is  prone  to  confound  them  with  the  type 
that  demands  prerogatives,  because  with  them,  too,  the 
atypic  parts  of  their  nature  determine  the  position  they 
are  to  occupy  in  relation  to  the  inherited  order  of  things. 
Since  present  conditions  are  regulated  by  quite  different 
considerations,  it  happens  that  the  revolutionary  and 
polemic  element  becomes  more  conspicuous  in  them  than 
would  comport  strictly  with  the  inner  necessities  of 
their  being.  This  polemic  element  creates  a  most  un- 
pleasant impression  upon  those  who  are  not  participants 
in  the  cause  of  the  "  emancipated,"  and  the  animosity  of 
the    sort    of    man    who    would    confer    the    name    of 


1 68  A  Survey  of  the  Wotnan  Problem 

"  woman  "  only  upon  the  erotic,  subordinate  type,  has 
branded  them  indiscriminately  with  the  unpleasant  term 
of  "  man-woman  " — Mannweib.  It  is  not  to  be  denied 
that  a  certain  relationship  exists  between  them  and  the 
world  of  masculinity.  Because  of  this  relationship, 
which,  if  not  judged  according  to  a  purely  one-sided 
sexual  viewpoint,  may  possibly  be  considered  an  ad- 
vantage, one  might  well  contrast  them,  as  the  most 
progressive  and  synthetic  type  of  femininity,  with  all 
the  others. 

One  point  might  be  especially  mentioned  as  a  proof 
of  how  strikingly  their  sensibilities  differ  from  those 
of  ordinary  womanhood — and  that  is  their  attitude 
towards  the  polygamous  morals  of  the  male  sex.  For 
most  women  the  number  of  conquests  and  adventures 
which  a  man  may  have  had  are  in  a  direct  proportion  to 
the  fascination  which  he  exercises  upon  them;  they  even 
regard  these  conquests  as  an  advantage.  The  idea  of  the 
virginity  of  a  man  possesses  no  charm  for  them.  Though 
it  may  not  appear  exactly  repugnant  to  them,  it  never- 
theless leaves  them  cold.  They  regard  male  polygamy 
as  a  matter  of  course  and  unalterable.  Nevertheless,  it 
frequently  occurs  that  young  girls,  as  soon  as  they  dis- 
cover these  things  with  regard  to  the  man  they  love, 
are  plunged  into  a  state  of  profound  despair — although, 
according  to  the  prevailing  views  of  society,  no  moral 
blame  may  attach  to  the  man.  They  suffer  almost  as 
deeply  in  their  inmost  sensibilities  as  do  most  men  under 
the  reverse  circumstances.  It  is  due  only  to  the  prevail- 
ing views  that  this  conflict  remains  buried  in  the  voice- 
less profounds  of  the  soul,  attended  by  those  shy  and 
silent  sufferings  for  which  there  is  no  echo  in  the  outer 
world. 


Women  and  Types  of  Women  169 

It  would  prove  no  impossible  task  to  find  indications 
of  this  in  the  literary  works  of  certain  distinguished 
women.  In  so  far  as  the  works  of  an  author  may  be 
regarded  as  documents  of  his  personality,  and  the  chang- 
ing figures  of  his  imagination  tend  to  betray  the  nature 
of  his  relation  to  the  world,  one  might,  for  instance, 
regard  Mauprat,  a  novel  in  which  masculine  virginity 
is  glorified,  as  an  unmistakable  evidence  of  the  erotic 
inclination  of  that  tender  and  free-spirited  woman 
George  Sand. 

The  fact  that  this  feeling  has  found  expression  in 
certain  tendencies  of  the  woman's  movement  is  likewise 
of  symptomatic  significance.  Unfortunately,  it  is  here 
amalgamated  with  all  manner  of  moralising  generalisa- 
tions. All  such  moralising  merely  obscures  the  essential 
phenomenon,  for  it  is  not  a  moral  judgment,  but  a  sub- 
jective feeling — the  expression  of  a  definite  constitution 
of  soul — which  has  to  be  considered  here. 

The  best-known  representative  of  such  a  type  is 
Svava,  in  Bjornsen's  The  Glove^  a  girl  who  breaks 
with  her  lover  when  she  learns  of  his  past  life.  But 
here,  too,  importance  is  given,  not  to  the  psychological 
problem,  but  to  the  moralising  tendency.  The  extreme 
opposite  to  Svava's  ideas,  has,  very  characteristically, 
been  given  to  us  by  Laura  Marholm.  In  her  story, 
What  Was  It?  the  lover  remarks  to  the  heroine: 
"  Love  of  a  venal  sort  always  seemed  revolting  to  me. 
I  have  never  yet  had  contact  with  any  woman."  Then, 
appalled,  the  girl  turns  from  him  :  "  a  cold  shudder 
seemed  to  go  through  her  soul,  as  though  she  had  met 
with  some  frosty  disillusion." 

Should  one  endeavour  to  group  the  types  of  fem- 
ininity   according    to    the    analogy    of    primitive    and 


170  A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

differentiated  types  of  men,  it  would  be  necessary  to 
seek  a  standard  in  the  individual  erotic  predisposition 
and  not  in  external  social  differences.  An  established 
formulated  antithesis  to  the  duties  of  life  such  as  exists 
amonc;  men  is  not  to  be  found  among  women,  and  the 
approximate  parallel  of  the  prostitute  and  the  honest 
woman  would  be  inadmissible,  because  prostitution  is 
a  form  of  living  not  socially  approved,  the  inherent  dis- 
position to  which  represents  an  atavistic  defect  in  the 
individual.  That  which  may  be  recognised  as  charac- 
teristic of  primitive  femininity  is  that  inability  to  assert 
oneself  which  finds  its  expression  in  the  feminine  desire 
for  subjection,  the  lack  of  personality  which  gives 
woman  as  a  sexual  being  into  the  power  of  an  alien  will, 
whether  this  will  take  the  form  of  parental  authority  in 
forcing  her  choice,  or  the  conjugal  lordship  which 
assumes  control  of  her  person.  But  that  woman 
who  out  of  her  own  fulness  of  power  desires  to  retain 
command  of  herself  as  a  sexual  being,  and,  true  to  an 
inner  need,  looks  upon  this  personal  right  as  the  highest 
law  of  her  life,  that  woman  who,  rather  than  be  de- 
pendent, is  content  to  toil — who  would  rather  give  up 
love  than  her  right  to  choose  for  herself,  must  be  re- 
garded as  a  type  of  differentiated  womanhood,  regardless 
of  the  social  position  she  may  occupy.  The  determining 
feature  is  the  development  of  a  consciousness  of  per- 
sonality which  rises  above  the  primitive  teleological  sex- 
character — and  most  comprehensively  so  when  it  also 
penetrates  the  erotic  idiosyncrasy  of  the  individual. 

Moreover,  one  ought  to  guard  against  setting  up  the 
quality  of  the  sexual  nature  as  in  itself  a  standard  for  the 
estimating  of  personality.  In  feminine  matters  questions 
of  mere  taste  are  turned  into  questions  of  principle.     It 


Women  and  Types  of  Women  171 

is  quite  futile  to  argue  which  type  of  femininity  may 
be  the  real  and  genuine.  "  What  ought  one  to  think 
of  a  woman  who  is  content  to  be  wholly  a  woman?  " 
asked  Max  Stirner.  "  That  is  not  possible  for  every 
woman,  and  many  would  set  up  for  themselves  an  inac- 
cessible goal.  Besides,  woman  is  feminine  by  nature, 
femininity  is  her  peculiarity  and  she  has  no  need  of 
'  genuine  '  femininity."  The  determining  factor  in  the 
life  of  every  individual  woman  is  the  erotic  attraction 
which  she  exercises  and  the  sureness  of  the  instinct  with 
which  she  makes  her  choice;  the  universally  feminine 
qualities  have  nothing  to  do  with  this.  Does  not  an 
altogether  private  and  personal  standard  come  into  force 
here.''  Is  there  not  a  law  which  in  every  case  operates 
only  according  to  the  individual  nature  of  the  two  par- 
ticipants.'' Hemmed  within  the  confines  of  a  distinct 
personality,  we  are  unable  to  choose  or  alter  that  mys- 
terious fundamental  law  upon  which  our  desires  and 
emotions  are  based  as  upon  fate  itself.  It  would  be 
useless  to  attempt  to  come  to  any  common  understanding 
or  conclusion  where  so  much  that  is  diverse  and  con- 
tradictory is  at  work  in  the  profounds  of  our  souls. 
Woman  and  woman  are  no  more  alike  than  man  and 
man.  Unless  this  fundamental  truth  is  recognised,  the 
psychology  of  sex  will  remain  a  labyrinth  of  insoluble 
contradictions. 


FAMILY    LITERATURE 

Never  before  have  the  ordinary  conceptions  of 
femininity,  of  the  imaginary  "  ideal  woman,"  been  so 
imbecile  as  in  the  nineteenth  century.  In  order  to 
understand  the  full  extent  of  this  stultification  we  must 
contemplate  the  picture  of  femininity  which  is  afforded 
by  that  literature  which  is  written  especially  for  women. 
For  the  present  age  has  this  questionable  distinction — 
it  possesses  a  special  literature  for  women. 

In  the  various  epochs  of  ancient  civilisation  previous 
to  the  decline  of  Rome,  there  was  no  feminine  "  literary 
public"  whatever;  women  were  not  admi""ed  to  the 
theatre,  and  their  lack  of  education,  their  inability  to 
read,  as  well  as  their  circumscribed  life  within  the  house, 
prevented  them  from  having  any  access  to  poetical  pro- 
ductions, whether  written  or  recited.  Yet  ancient  litera- 
ture presents  us  with  a  richly  individualised  picture  of 
woman,  especially  in  the  form  of  feminine  deities. 

On  the  other  hand,  in  the  Middle  Ages  it  was  pre- 
cisely the  women  who,  together  with  the  clergy,  were 
the  supporters  of  culture.  As  arbiters  of  refined  manners 
and  of  fine  and  genial  social  life,  they  far  excelled 
the  priesthood.  Women  were  also  the  chief  patrons  of 
secular  poetry,  nor  did  this  exert  any  cramping  influ- 
ence either  on  its  subjects  or  on  its  modes  of  expression, 
though  written  especially  for  them.     In  this  literature, 


Family  Literature  173 

too,  woman  greets  us  in  a  rich  array  of  personalities, 
many  of  them,  such  as  Kriemhilde  or  Isolde,  or  the 
women  of  the  Charlemagne  epic,  being  far  removed 
from  "  the  pattern  of  ideal  womanhood  "  which  we  are 
now  accustomed  to  admire. 

This  "  pattern,"  and  the  literary  precautions  which 
are  taken  to  protect  it,  are  creations  peculiar  to  the  pre- 
sent age.  Goethe,  to  be  sure,  complained  to  Eckermann 
of  the  effect  on  dramatic  art  of  the  presence  of  young 
girls  in  the  theatre,  but  since  then  this  influence  has 
increased  enormously. 

For  now  there  are  two  distinct  provinces  of  litera- 
ture. One  is  the  province  of  free  and  personal  creation 
wherein  the  individuality  of  the  author,  his  own  experi- 
ence of  the  world  and  of  life,  reign  supreme.  But  in 
this  province  the  greater  part  of  the  output  of  our  print- 
ing presses  from  year  to  year  finds  no  place.  Circula- 
tHons  by  the  hundred  thousand,  which  bring  so  much 
work  and  so  much  profit  to  authors,  and  are  such  a 
feature  of  modern  literature,  are  the  emoluments  of  a 
far  different  field — that  of  so-called  family  literature. 

Everyone  is  aware  that  the  phrase  "  family  litera- 
ture "  is  not  an  honorary  title.  It  is  not  the  literary 
quality  of  the  work  that  is  regarded,  for  artistic  excel- 
lence is  not  the  point  of  view  of  its  critics.  No  honesty 
of  observation,  no  creative  power,  invention,  nor  new 
problems  which  denote  literary  development  are  ex- 
pected here.  Whether  the  works  be  literary  or  scien- 
tific, novels  or  poems,  treatises  or  anecdotes,  they  must 
all  be  made  according  to  a  fixed  pattern, 'must  have  a 
certain  sort  of  moral  foundation,  and  a  certain  conven- 
tional relation  to  reality,  or  they  will  never  pass  the 
censorship  of  the  family  journal.     This  procedure  is, 


1 74  ^  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

of  course,  most  fatal  for  the  purely  literary  production, 
since  the  chief  object  of  the  system  is  to  provide  mental 
food  for  the  family  table.  The  world  which  must  be 
here  represented  has  to  be  enclosed  within  a  sort  of 
Chinese  wall,  and  the  characters  must  play  their  parts 
according  to  fixed  rules.  It  is  a  puppet  show  in  which 
a  number  of  stereotyped  figures  and  thoughts  perform 
with  constantly  repeated  variations  a  fable  which  is 
conventionally  supposed  to  represent  the  ways  and  works 
of  human  beings. 

o 

Arthur  Zapp,  in  a  very  significant  article  which 
appeared  in  the  Zukunft  of  the  i2th  of  November, 
1898,  has,  frankly  and  without  reserve,  shed  some  light 
on  the  terrorism  exercised  in  this  field.  He  describes 
the  thorny  path  along  which  he  was  driven  from  being 
an  independent  creator,  working  according  to  his  own 
impulses  and  observations,  to  becoming  a  manufacturer 
of  novels  for  the  family  circle.  He  quotes  some  very 
instructive  passages  from  letters  which  were  sent  to  him 
by  editors  of  widely-read  family  journals.  One  of  them 
writes :  "  We  cannot  accept  contributions  that  have  a 
political  or  religious  character.  In  the  matter  of  love 
and  passion  they  must  contain  nothing  which  would 
prevent  them  from  being  read  to  the  younger  members 
of  a  family.  Cases  of  divorce  or  suicide  must  not  be 
introduced.  The  story  must  be  increasingly  interesting, 
and  in  each  chapter  some  fresh  event  must  occur  or  some 
new  complication  must  arise.  The  ending  must  be  a 
happy  one,  leaving  a  pleasant  impression."  The  editor 
of  a  journal  which  has  a  circulation  of  over  a  hundred 
thousand,  writes  in  a  marvellously  similar  strain  :  "  Our 
publication  is  intended  for  the  family  circle,  so  we  must, 
above  all  things,  lay  the  greatest  stress  on  decency  and 


Family  Literature  175 

an  absolute  avoidance  of  all  political  and  theological 
controversies.  The  stories  must  be  terse  and  full  of 
incident,  maintaining  the  reader's  interest  and  avoiding 
wearisome  descriptions  and  reflections.  A  satisfactory- 
termination  is  indispensable."  Whenever  the  author 
permits  himself  to  be  tempted  away  from  conforming 
to  this  pattern  of  "  family-journal-novel-manufactur- 
ing," as  he  himself  calls  it,  whenever  he  describes  an 
environment  or  dissects  a  character  psychologically,  or 
even  attempts  a  satirical  attack  on  the  weaknesses  of 
modern  social  life,  the  manuscript  is  unfailingly  returned 
to  him. 

If  we  examine  the  feminine  types  which  dominate 
this  kind  of  literature,  we  find  them  to  be  puppets  arbi- 
trarily cut  and  padded  to  conform  to  the  established 
pattern.  They  depict  woman  as  she  should  be  and  as 
she  should  not  be,  and  they  are  plainly  labelled  so  as 
to  prevent  any  possibility  of  mistake. 

For  this  family  literature  has  an  especial  mission  to 
fulfil  which  cannot  be  combined  with  an  artistic  pre- 
sentation of  reality.  Who,  then,  are  these  "younger 
members  of  the  family  "  who  exercise  such  restrictive 
influences.''  Certainly  not  those  boys  who  are  growing 
up  so  rapidly.  All  this  reticence  about  political,  reli- 
gious, and  erotic  questions  is  not  maintained  on  their 
account.  Not  for  them  is  the  romantic  tale  prepared, 
the  pleasant  ending,  rose-coloured,  sentimental  and  un- 
real. Indeed,  why  should  it  be.?  Already  at  school 
there  has  been  opportunity  enough  for  them  to  learn  in 
some  degree  the  stern  realities  of  life.  You  have  but  to 
look  through  the  leaves  of  any  favourite  journal  written 
for  the  "  family  "  and  you  will  soon  see  who  plays  the 
leading  part.     Never  is  the  youth  of  eighteen  the  hero 


176  A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

or  the  central  figure  of  the  story.  His  joys  and  sorrows 
do  not  form  the  themes  for  writers  of  this  literature; 
if  he  appears  at  all  it  is  merely  to  play  a  comic  part. 
No!  Behind  this  family  bugbear  who  seems  to  rule 
so  despotically,  there  stands  no  one  but  the  young  girl ! 
And  she  it  is  for  whose  mental  innocence  the  family  is 
always  trembling,  and  for  whose  eighteen-year-old 
intelligence  all  literary  food  must  be  adapted  ere  it  can 
find  a  place  upon  the  family  table.  Yes,  for  the  girl  of 
eighteen  years,  for  at  that  age  the  well-bred  young 
ladies  of  middle-class  society  are  supposed  to  have  done 
with  their  intellectual  development. 

The  next  ten  years,  during  which  a  young  man  makes 
such  a  great  stride  towards  maturity  and  independence 
of  thought  and  judgment,  remain  unfruitful  for  a  girl 
unless  she  happens  to  marry.  She  is  considered  as 
"  finished  "  and  grown-up  from  the  very  moment  when 
she  is  first  brought  out  in  society,  and  the  single  woman 
of  twenty-eight  has  no  oflBcial  precedence  over  the 
young  girl  of  eighteen.  On  the  contrary,  the  older 
woman  must  of  necessity  strive  constantly  to  resemble 
the  younger  one  as  much  as  is  possible  both  in  mind  and 
body. 

So  long  as  the  chief  aim  in  the  training  of  the  female 
is  to  keep  her  in  an  immature  state  of  development  for 
a  future  husband,  such  stagnation  will  be  a  natural 
result  of  this  error  of  principle — an  error  which  extends 
its  baneful  influence  far  beyond  her  unmarried  years 
and  often  throughout  her  entire  life.  When  she  is 
married  she  enters  upon  new  duties  and  new  occupa- 
tions; the  abundant  leisure  possessed  by  a  girl  of  the 
well-to-do  middle  class,  and  the  opportunities  she  has 
for  study,  are  appreciably  diminished.    That  is  why  the 


Family  Literature  177 

average  correct  and  well-bred  woman  remains  all  her  life 
on  the  same  mental  level  as  in  her  girlish  years.  Her 
taste  and  her  outlook  in  literary  matters  undergo  no 
change,  unless  the  position  and  education  of  her  hus- 
band are  able  to  exercise  some  influence  on  her  mental 
development. 

Now  it  is  precisely  the  female  sex  which  forms  the 
most  receptive,  the  most  eager,  and  the  most  numerous 
class  of  reader.  That  is  proved  by  the  prosperity  of  all 
the  family  journals,  so  far  greater  than  that  of  the  best 
and  most  liberal  periodicals.  Family  literature  really 
means  woman's  literature.  When  the  famous  Danish 
author,  Jacobsen,  published  his  first  novel,  he  wrote  to 
Edward  Brandes :  "It  may  be  that  the  watchmen  of 
the  people  have  already  banned  the  book,  and  declared 
that  it  is  not  fit  to  be  placed  in  the  hands  of  young  girls; 
if  that  is  the  case,  it  will  be  a  failure  now  and  for  all 
time," 

The  relations  of  men  and  women  to  one  another  form 
the  most  important  theme  in  family  literature,  as  is 
quite  natural  when  the  readers  are  mostly  women.  But 
it  is  not  marriage,  that  difficult  and  complicated  relation- 
ship, so  full  of  conflict,  and  so  decisive  in  its  influence 
upon  a  woman's  life,  that  constitutes  the  chief  theme, 
but  love  and  betrothal.  It  is  inevitably  a  pair  of  lovers 
who  are  brought  through  "  exciting  complications  "  and 
the  most  varied  impediments  to  the  "  happy  ending  " 
of  marriage.  As  soon  as  the  aff^air  has  reached  that 
point,  the  author  takes  leave  of  his  readers  with  the 
comforting  assurance  that  the  wedding  day  is  the  crown- 
ing glory  of  life  and  the  joyful  ending  of  all  troubles 
and  disappointments.  Only  when  he  is  very  thorough 
in  his  work  does  he  once  more  at  the  conclusion  raise 

N 


lyS  A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

the  curtain  for  a  moment,  to  show  us  the  young  wife 
wrapped  in  ecstasy  and  bliss  with  a  six-weeks-old  infant 
on  her  lap. 

"  The  education  of  well-bred  women,"  says 
Nietzsche,  "is  wonderful  and  monstrous;  all  the  world 
has  as;reed  to  bring  them  up  as  ignorant  as  possible  '  in 
eroticis.^ "  The  most  wonderful  feature  of  this  system, 
however,  is  that  the  female  imagination  is  continually 
stimulated  with  erotic  matters,  and  the  most  monstrous 
that  these  erotic  subjects  should  always  be  treated  in  a 
false  and  deceitful  manner  when  offered  as  food  for  the 
female  imagination.  In  this  way  the  most  painful 
wounds  and  disappointments  are  prepared  for  the 
credulous  and  innocent.  Considering  the  overwhelm- 
ing importance  of  marriage  to  a  young  woman  of  the 
middle  class,  her  education  ought  to  furnish  her  with 
at  least  sufficient  knowledge  and  the  requisite  capability 
necessary  for  forming  a  reasonable  judgment  about  it. 
But  our  customs  have  now  come  to  such  a  point  that 
they  are  absolutely  absurd.  They  prescribe  for  a  girl 
an  ignorance  and  unfamiliarity  with  the  world  which 
were,  perhaps,  important  conditions  in  days  when  the 
parents  still  chose  the  husband,  and  when  the  relations 
between  married  people  were  settled  by  social  rather 
than  by  personal  considerations.  But  now  in  the  eyes 
of  civilised  nations  it  has  become  almost  a  moral  postu- 
late that  the  personal  inclinations  of  those  who  are  to 
be  married  should  be  taken  into  account.  Even  royal 
marriages,  which  are  notoriously  arranged  for  reasons 
of  state,  are  publicly  represented  as  being  marriages  of 
affection.  A  complete  ignorance  of  life  is  incompatible 
with  ability  to  form  a  personal  decision  respecting  a 
bond  which  is  to  last  a  lifetime.     It  would  be  no  exag- 


Family  Literature  179 

geration  to  ascribe  to  family  literature  a  chief  part  of  the 
responsibility  for  unhappy  marriages,  although  divorce, 
to  be  sure,  never  comes  within  its  range  of  vision.  But 
a  literature  which  is  essentially  false  and  deceitful,  which 
is  subservient  to  unwholesome  and  unpractical  prudery, 
cannot  fail  to  lead  astray  the  imaginations  of  those  for 
whom  it  is  the  only  permissible  mental  food.  By  con- 
tinually occupying  the  minds  of  its  readers  with 
"enthralling'*  romances,  that  is  to  say,  with  novels  in 
which  the  natural  course  of  life  is  twisted  arbitrarily  in 
order  to  produce  striking  effects,  it  has  in  itself  a  cor- 
rupting influence,  weakening  their  power  of  judging 
ordinary  people  and  commonplace  events.  The  romantic 
method  of  representing  love  affairs  also  stimulates 
extravagantly  those  high-flown  expectations  of  happi- 
ness in  married  life  which  are  so  great  a  danger  and 
source  of  weakness  for  all  young  women. 

Fiction  is  not  the  only  department  of  family  litera- 
ture which  contains  these  dangerous  elements.  Among 
the  approved  family  books  of  that  type  which  "  may 
with  a  clear  conscience  be  put  into  the  hands  of  any 
young  girl,"  we  find  very  many  that  are  calculated  to 
produce  exceedingly  harmful  misapprehensions.  One 
example  will  suffice — and  it  is  one  that  is  honourably 
distinguished  from  the  common  run  by  its  lofty  tone 
and  strong  feeling — I  mean  Woman^  by  the  French 
author  Michelet.  He  himself  declares  in  his  preface 
that  he  has  left  gaps  in  the  work,  since  he  has  not  dealt 
with  prostitution  or  with  adultery.  Thus,  it  is  one  of 
those  cautious  and  guarded  books  conveniently  suited 
to  the  requirements  of  the  family  table.  Woman's  life 
is  described  with  all  that  fantastic  sentimental  exaggera- 
tion  with   which  it  is    so   frequently   pictured    in   the 

N    2 


1 8o  A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

imaginations  of  men  with  strong  passions  but  noble 
character.  What  nonsense  do  we  encounter  here! 
Modern  education  ought  to  strive  to  make  the  boy  a 
"worker"  and  the  girl  a  "religion."  "Woman  is  a 
religion.  .  .  .  She  is  the  flame  of  love  and  the  flame  of 
the  hearth;  ...  in  one  word,  she  is  the  altar."  She  is 
the  embodiment  of  everything  that  is  tender,  holy,  and 
perfect,  far  removed  from  all  the  sordid  cares  and  neces- 
sities of  life.  Every  morning  and  every  evening  she 
should  pray,  "  Oh,  God !  make  me  beautiful."  Man, 
on  the  contrary,  is  a  "  Herculean  toiler "  who  from 
his  early  youth  should  inure  himself  to  all  the  storms 
of  life.  For  him  nothing  is  too  roucrh,  nothing  is  too 
hard;  and  he  must  bear  bruises  in  body  and  in  soul. 
For  that  is  how  women  would  have  him  be;  they  want 
"  a  good  pillow,  on  which  they  may  trustfully  lay  their 
heads,  .  .  .  and  thus  they  make  no  sacrifice  when  they  say, 
'  he  is  my  lord  and  master  ' — and  their  smiling  signifies  : 
'But  I  will  be  the  mistress.'  "  Thus  we  see  that  such  a 
"  truly  womanly "  young  lady  can  accomplish  every- 
thing^; free  from  all  cares  and  fears  she  achieves  the 
most  astonishing  results.  "  She  it  is  who  in  her  seven- 
teenth year  may  by  a  noble  word  so  elevate  a  man  as  to 
inspire  him  to  say:  '  I  will  be  great.'  "  Michelet  even 
expects  the  man  of  her  choice  to  transform  himself  from 
"  an  ordinary  student,  the  son  of  an  ordinary  citizen, 
into  that  kingly,  heroic  being"  of  whom  she  has  always 
dreamed.  And  this  "  transformation  must  be  decisive 
and  complete,"  not  merely  during  his  courtship  and 
his  honeymoon,  but  lasting  for  the  remainder  of  his 
life. 

This  is  the  sort  of  guidance  which  a  well-bred  young 
lady  receives  from  her  spiritual  counsellors  and  leaders. 


Famt/y  Literature  i8i 

Why  should  we  laugh  at  those  silly  illusions  of  the 
girlish  mind  which  lead  her  to  believe  that  love  will 
change  every  suitable  candidate  for  her  hand  into  a  hero 
and  a  prince,  as  in  the  fairy  stories  or  in  her  own  sweet 
dreams  ?  Is  it  possible  that  anyone  except  a  maiden  of 
seventeen  would  believe  in  sober  earnest  that  an 
"ordinary  citizen's  son"  will,  after  his  marriage,  he 
anything  else  than — the  son  of  an  ordinary  citizen  ? 

Why  should  young  girls  be  thus  intentionally  de- 
ceived ?  Why  should  they  be  filled  with  such  miserable 
illusions  for  the  sake  of  preserving  their  "  innocence  " 
and  their  "poetic  nature?  " 

We  have  not  far  to  go  when  seeking^  the  reason  of 
this  apparently  benevolent  deception,  which  is,  in  truth, 
so  inexcusable.  A  certain  type  is  thought  to  be  desir- 
able, and  to  this  type  the  individual  is  sacrificed.  Her 
own  personal  interests  in  life  are  not  regarded;  they  are 
subordinated  to  a  higher  aim.  She  must  be  fitted  for 
the  marriage  market,  in  which  the  traditional  "  idea/ 
womanhood  "  has  the  best  chances.  And  family  litera- 
ture affords  the  most  effective  means  for  suggesting  and 
producing  this  sort  of  womanhood. 

It  has  been  whispered  that  many  of  these  well- 
guarded  maidens  do  not  restrict  themselves  to  these 
official  precepts,  but  secretly  extend  their  knowledge  of 
the  world  by  reading  forbidden  books.  That  is  as  it 
may  be.  It  is  certainly  not  easy  for  any  single  indi- 
vidual to  break  that  iron  band  which  the  prejudices  of 
good  breeding  have  welded  about  the  female  intellect. 
Can  anyone  imagine  that  there  could  be  any  beneficent 
educational  influence  in  such  indiscriminate  reading  of 
forbidden  books,  even  if  none  of  them  should  happen 
to  be  bad.'' 


1 82  A  Survey  of  the  Wotiian  Problem 

Thus,  the  young  girl  has  become  a  hindrance  and  a 
danger  for  the  mental  life  of  the  nation,  at  least  so  far 
as  real  literature  is  concerned.  In  what  way?  Is  she 
more  responsible  for  this  than  for  the  other  rules  and 
regulations  of  good  breeding?  Are  there  not  other 
social  powers  desirous  that  she  should  be  trained  as  she  is 
by  this  false  literature  ? — powers  which  admire  this  type 
of  woman  and  decree  which  women  are  to  be  thus 
disciplined  ? 

As  a  mental  factor  in  a  nation's  life  the  female  sex 
is  not  so  unimportant  and  ineffective  as  these  powers 
appear  to  imagine.  Those  who  look  upon  the  struggle 
of  women  for  a  masculine  education  as  the  mere  hobby 
of  a  few,  or  as  a  part  of  the  general  woman's  movement, 
forget  the  intimate  connection  of  every  "  culture  move- 
ment "  with  the  whole  domain  of  culture.  They  are 
blind  to  the  importance  of  women  as  consumers  of 
literary  works.  The  history  of  the  development  of 
family  literature  shows  plainly  that  just  in  the  measure 
in  which  women's  training  has  lagged  behind  the  train- 
ing of  the  men,  that  hiatus  in  literature  has  arisen,  pro- 
ducing that  monstrous  abnormal  growth  in  the  intellec- 
tual life  of  the  nineteenth  century.  This  symptom  of 
profound  org^anic  disturbance  will  be  removed  only  when 
the  underlying  evils  have  been  cured. 


THE    CANON    OF    IDEAL    WOMANHOOD 

We  shall  be  able  to  know  what  women  are  only  when 
we  no  longer  dictate  to  them  what  they  should  be.  It  is, 
indeed,  difficult  to  ascertain  the  true  contours  of  a 
woman's  individuality  beneath  the  conventional  exterior 
which  the  cultured  woman  wears  like  some  skin-tight 
covering.  Accustomed  to  a  constant  repression  of  every 
opinion  upon  life,  bound  by  a  thousand  invisible  threads 
more  securely  than  by  chains,  forced  by  the  tyranny  of 
prevailing  standards  into  self-deception  and  a  fear  of 
confessing  their  own  divergent  emotions — they  silently 
pursue  those  paths  which  have  been  prescribed  for  them 
by  a  stronger  will. 

Opinions  with  respect  to  what  woman  "  ought  "  to 
be  are  the  determining  factor  of  feminine  education, 
the  sole  purpose  of  which  is  to  suggest  a  fixed  type  to 
the  growing  girl.  To  be  sure,  the  development  of 
young  men  is  subject  to  a  similar  influence;  but  as 
women  are  trained  merely  for  one  purpose,  for  one 
vocation,  there  is  much  less  play  for  individuality  within 
the  limits  of  female  education.  In  addition  to  this, 
women  are  generally  much  more  disposed  to  subordinate 
themselves  to  authority — the  fact  that  they  are  con- 
sidered the  weaker  sex  is,  in  the  main,  due  to  their  sus- 
ceptibility to  suggestion.    The  disciplinary  measures  by 

means    of    which    human    beings    are   converted    into 

183 


184  A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

"  useful "  members  of  society  react  more  strongly  upon 
them  than  upon  men. 

Accordins:  to  Laura  Marholm,  neither  the  best  nor 
the  worst  of  the  raw  material  of  womankind  is  capable 
of  being  led  or  trained,  but  only  the  second-rate; 
according  to  another  point  of  view,  less  extensively  dis- 
seminated, it  is  precisely  the  most  excellent  women,  the 
"  true,"  or  "  fine,"  women,  who  are  most  docile  and 
adaptive.  In  whatsoever  way  we  may  elect  to  judge 
them,  it  is  nevertheless  true  that  the  majority  of  women 
conform  to  the  dominance  of  certain  ideas  with  regard 
to  their  duties,  in  order  to  approximate  as  closely  as 
possible  to  some  model,  some  canon  of  womanhood. 
The  closer  they  resemble  this  disciplinary  ideal,  the  more 
womanly  they  believe  themselves  to  be,  and  they  fear 
to  lose  this  womanly  quality  by  any  divergence  from 
this  ideal. 

John  Stuart  Mill  speaks  of  the  "  excesses  of  self- 
denial  which  form  the  present  artificial  ideal  of  the  femi- 
nine character,"  and  in  testing  the  articles  of  faith  of 
womanhood,  one  encounters  a  number  of  purely  nega- 
tive traits  which  are  elevated  to  the  rank  of  moral  rules. 
Is  it  necessary  to  consider  these  as  expressions  of 
woman's  nature.?  Or  do  they  originate  from  without, 
prescribed,  perhaps,  for  the  female  sex  by  some  alien 
and  mightier  will } 

That  conception  which  has  hitherto  determined  the 
social  status  of  the  female  sex  has  decreed  to  woman 
only  a  secondary  significance.  According  to  this,  woman 
is  only  a  means  to  an  end :  first,  for  man's  gratification; 
secondly,  for  the  reproduction  of  man,  who  is  in  him- 
self the  final  end  of  all  the  contrivances  of  Nature  as 
well   as   of  the  State.      No  intrinsic  worth   as  a  self- 


The   Canofi  of  Ideal  Womanhood  185 

sufficient  personality,  or  a  self-justified  individuality,  is 
granted  to  woman.  She  is  of  value  only  to  the  extent 
in  which  she  serves  as  a  means,  and  the  only  condition 
which  morally  and  practically  justifies  the  existence  of 
woman,  is  marriage. 

This  conception,  systematised  philosophically  and 
based  upon  the  Nature  of  Reason^  is  to  be  met  with 
in  Fichte's  Basis  of  Natural  Right  according  to  Scientific 
Principles.  There  we  may  read  :  f'  According  to  natural 
disposition,  the  second  sex  occupies  a  place  a  degree 
lower  than  the  first.  .  .  .  Woman  does  not  appertain 
to  herself,  but  to  man.  .  .  .  The  concept  of  marriage 
decrees  the  unlimited  subjection  of  woman  to  the  will 
of  man.  .  .  .  Her  own  worth  depends  entirely  upon  the 
condition  that  she  belongs  to  her  husband  in  all  that 
she  is,  and  that  without  a  single  reservation  she  gives 
herself  wholly  into  his  hands.  The  least  of  the  conse- 
quences of  this  is  contained  in  the  law  that  she  resign 
all  her  rights  to  him  and  follow  him.  Only  when 
united  to  him,  only  in  his  eyes  and  in  his  affairs,  does 
she  possess  life  and  activity.  She  has  ceased  to  lead  the 
life  of  an  individuality.'^ 

But  it  is  especially  characteristic  that  Fichte  has 
described  the  chief  natural  urging  of  woman  as  an 
urging  to  "be  the  means  for  the  end  of  another,  be- 
cause she  cannot  be  her  own  end  without  yielding  up 
her  main  purpose,  the  dignity  of  reason." 

This  entire  method  of  deduction,  as  vrell  as  the 
justification  of  the  prevailing  laws  and  morals  by  means 
of  abstract  principles  of  reason,  compels  us  to  ask  : 
What  is  this  element  which  here,  under  the  name  of 
"  the  dignity  of  reason,"  excites  such  a  dominant  and 
arbitrary  influence.''     Why  is  this  conception  supposed 


1 86  A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

to  be  symptomatic?  Is  it  not  only  the  instinct  of  a 
certain  kind  of  masculinity  which  would  legitimatise 
itself?  Most  men  in  their  relation  to  woman  are 
moralists.  They  are  not  content  with  justifying  their 
demands  upon  woman  by  basing  these  upon  their  own 
tastes  and  inclinations,  nor  with  living  out  their  lives 
in  an  individual  relation  with  some  woman  adequate  to 
their  natures;  but  they  will  tolerate  no  divergence  from 
that  law  which  is  the  result  of  their  own  choice,  and  will 
punish  all  such  divergences  with  their  personal  disappro- 
bation, stigmatising  them  as  "  degeneration  "  of  the  one 
legitimate  normality.  "  True  "  womanhood  is  built 
up  out  of  the  wishes  and  necessities  of  such  men;  they 
have  created  the  conventions  according  to  which  all  that 
is  feminine  ought  to  shape  itself.  It  is  difficult  to 
recognise  in  the  ideas  which  lie  at  the  bottom  of  this 
convention  the  nejxative  form  of  all  that  arises  from 
the  demands  of  a  definite  masculine  nature. 

That  ironic  definition  of  Arne  Garborg's  :  "  Woman- 
hood is  the  summary  of  all  the  peculiarities  and  idiosyn- 
crasies, the  advantages  and  the  faults  which  make 
woman  desirable  unto  man,"  proves  how  closely  this 
convention  is  associated  with  the  abstract  idea  of  woman- 
hood. There  are  two  challenges  or  demands  which  call 
for  special  consideration  here.  They  appear  under 
various  terms,  but,  analysed  according  to  their  general 
nature,  one  might  describe  them  as  beauty  and  as  weak- 
ness. It  would  be  impossible  among  all  the  orthodox 
advantages  pertaining  to  ideal  womanhood  to  find  one 
which  could  not  be  placed  into  one  or  the  other  of  these 
two  categories. 

The  most  unassailable  of  the  many  formulas  which 
convert  woman's  beauty  into  a  laWj  has  been  given  us 


The  Canon  oj  Ideal  Womanhood  187 

by  Neufville  :  "  Beauty  is  the  mission  of  woman  :  she 
exists  under  no  other  condition."  A  milder  interpreta- 
tion declares  that  grace  and  beauty  constitute  the  genius 
of  woman,  or  that  esthetics  with  woman  takes  the  place 
which  ethics  occupies  with  man.  It  is  this  custom  of 
regarding  the  female  sex  as  primarily  the  esthetic  one 
that  gives  rise  to  all  those  preconceptions  that  pledge 
woman  to  be  "  a  mirror  of  seemliness  "  (Julius  Duboc), 
and  also  the  representative  of  that  which  is  known  as 
*'  the  grace  of  moderation,"  preconceptions  which  prove 
plainly  that  they  are  not  derived  from  the  aboriginal 
nature  of  woman.  For  the  peculiar  power  of  a  quicker 
reaction  to  physical  and  psychical  stimuli  which  one  is 
accustomed  to  ascribe  to  the  nervous  system  of  woman, 
disposes  her  to  a  more  violent  display  of  their  emotional 
effects,  and  for  this  reason  annuls  that  repression  which 
is  demanded  by  the  "  grace  of  moderation." 

Into  the  cate2;ory  of  weakness  we  must  place  all  those 
peculiarities  which  are  calculated  to  arouse  an  appear- 
ance of  helplessness,  subjection,  and  dependence.  The 
determining  factor  here  is  marriage,  this  being  the  one 
solitary  vocation  for  which  woman  is  prepared  by  her 
education.  Since  the  prevailing  ideas  of  marriage  mean 
an  entire  resignation  of  a  woman's  personality,  it  must 
be  assumed  that  the  most  docile,  the  most  yielding,  and 
the  least  self-reliant  woman  is  best  qualified  for  it.  In 
this  relation  the  forms  of  education  are  based  upon  a 
sort  of  law  of  averages.  It  is  not  the  noblest,  most 
distinguished,  or  most  modified  type  of  manliness  which 
here  sets  up  the  standards,  but  the  most  ordinary,  the 
most  commonplace  and  familiar — in  fact,  just  that  very 
type  with  which  we  have  to  reckon. 

This  kind  of  masculinity  will  also  be  best  suited  by 


1 88  A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

average  qualities,  by  the  utilitarian,  the  pliable,  by 
everything  that  possesses  the  cheapest  qualities  of  agree- 
ableness.  Only  a  weak  being  can  easily  and  consciously 
subordinate  itself.  Adaptation,  self-surrender,  lack  of 
self-reliance,  are  coincident  phenomena  of  a  feeble  will. 
Women  are  not  only  weak  of  will,  but  they  "  ought  " 
to  be  so.  It  is  one  of  man's  favourite  illusions  that 
woman  first  receives  her  personality  from  him. 
Nietzsche  confirms  it  in  these  words :  "  Man  makes 
himself  an  image  of  woman,  and  woman  shapes  herself 
to  this  image."  Michelet,  in  his  book  upon  love, 
declares :  "  You  must  create  you  wife — it  is  her 
own  wish.  We  men  are  artizans,  creators,  builders 
■ — true  sons  of  Prometheus.  We  do  not  desire  a 
ready-made  Pandora,  but  one  whom  we  ourselves 
create." 

Here,  even  more  plainly  than  in  the  formulas  of 
Fichte,  the  subjective  erotic  phantasy  betrays  itself 
the  origin  of  this  assumption.  The  idea  that  a 
being  with  definite  and  inborn  characteristics — and  even 
the  weakest-willed  woman  comes  under  this  head — 
could  be  "created"  in  an  arbitrary  fashion,  does  not 
arise  from  real  observation,  but  belongs  to  those 
numerous  illusions  which  arise  in  the  psycho-sexual 
relationships  of  man.  Nevertheless,  the  methods  of 
feminine  education  voluntarily  foster  these  illusions.  In 
order  to  give  an  air  of  probability  to  this  idea  of 
"  creating,"  it  is  necessary  that  girls  remain  un- 
developed, ignorant,  and  even  impersonal  creatures 
until  such  time  as  they  may  find  their  "  creators."  The 
entire  procedure  of  feminine  education  is  devoted  to 
the  retardation  of  an  independent  process  of  develop- 
ment; it  is  a  method  of  suppression,  of  intimidation,  of 


The  Canon  of  Ideal  Womanhood  189 

artificial  prevention  of  growth.  The  well-bred  girl  is 
intimidated  to  such  a  degree  that  she  is  fearful  of  taking 
the  slightest  step  on  her  own  account;  her  way  to  the 
hallowed  haven  of  marriage  is  like  running  the  gauntlet 
between  numberless  possibilities  of  giving  offence,  of 
doing  something  that  "  is  not  proper."  The  fear  of 
doing  something  improper  exerts  so  powerful  an  influ- 
ence upon  the  feminine  soul  merely  because  at  its  back- 
ground lies  the  conception  of  ideal  womanhood— of 
that  paragon  from  which  all  divergence  is  considered  as 
degeneration. 

Since  this  particular  ideal  of  education  is  the  result 
of  the  erotic  pretensions  of  a  definite  type  of  masculinity, 
since  the  dominant  taste  of  a  majority  has  created  this 
ideal,  why,  indeed,  should  one  object  to  it }  Perhaps 
the  female  sex,  because  of  its  weakness  of  will,  which 
usually  creates  a  feeling  of  dependence  and  a  need 
of  being  guarded,  must,  after  all,  be  treated  as  a 
secondary  sex.  Perhaps  it  is  impossible  to  consider  it 
from  any  other  viewpoint  than  that  of  its  fitness  for 
the  purposes  of  the  male }  No  one  will  deny  that  such 
happiness  as  arises  from  a  perfect  union  between  man 
and  woman  is  to  be  considered  as  one  of  the  greatest, 
if  not  absolutely  the  very  greatest,  blessing  of  human 
life.  Is  it  not,  therefore,  to  the  interests  of  women 
themselves  that  they  submit  to  all  that  prepares  and 
trains  them  for  this  purpose.''  Should  they  not  be  con- 
tent, for  the  sake  of  this  treasure,  to  remain  weak  and 
dependent  creatures  for  ever .'' 

But  are  we  here  considering  those  lofty  gifts  of  love 
which  are  the  inevitable  fruits  of  a  consummate  reci- 
procity '^.  There  are  endless  possibilities  of  erotic  attrac- 
tion, and  every  real  love-union  is  built  upon  individual 


1 90  A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

characteristics,  and  not  upon  conventional  ideas.  It  is 
the  individual  nuances  which  determine  the  erotic 
attractiveness — all  those  countless  shadings  of  per- 
sonality which  decree  that  a  man  is  to  be  moved  to  love 
by  a  certain  feminine  individuality,  and  not  by  a 
complex  pattern  of  femininity. 

In  criticising  the  method  of  woman's  education  it  is 
not  necessary  to  begin  with  the  right  to  a  free  per- 
sonality— it  is  merely  necessary  to  ask  whether  such  a 
right  may  be  demanded  by  women  as  a  matter  of  justice. 
For  the  rights  of  personality  are  not  granted;  they  are 
usurped;  one  does  not  wait  until  they  come  from  with- 
out, one  seizes  upon  them  because  of  an  inner  necessity, 
nor  is  there  the  slightest  danger  that  education  will  in 
any  way  injure  strong  feminine  personalities. 

The  weaker  individualities  who  are  unable  to  assert 
themselves  or  to  execute  their  wills  are  far  less  fortu- 
nately situated.  But  even  they  must  be  considered 
from  some  other  viewpoint  than  that  of  a  secondary 
sex.  The  more  that  they  happen  to  be  "  merely 
woman "  the  more  significance  the  so-called  natural 
calling  of  woman  will  possess  for  them.  One  should, 
no  doubt,  be  permitted  to  ask  just  how  far  the  prevail- 
ing ideals  of  feminine  education  are  calculated  to  make 
those  who  subject  themselves  to  them  capable  of 
fulfilling  this  calling. 

It  must  be  clear  that  a  system  of  education  which 
seeks  to  qualify  the  female  sex  for  its  natural  destiny, 
must  first  of  all  prepare  it,  both  mentally  and  physically, 
for  the  duties  of  motherhood.  Through  maternity. 
Nature  has  given  to  the  female  organism  the  most  im- 
portant function  in  the  life  of  the  species;  a  heavy  task 
which,  above  all  things,  demands  a  hardening  of  body 


The   Canon  of  Ideal  Womanhood  1 9 1 

and  of  soul,  fearlessness,  inner  courage,  and  a  heroic 
disregard  of  physical  pain.  But  it  is  in  vain  that 
we  seek  these  qualities  among  the  canons  of  "ideal" 
femininity.  The  hothouse  methods  of  good  breeding 
which  turn  woman  into  a  mere  object  of  luxury,  thus 
atrophy  those  very  tendencies  and  instincts  which  are 
part  of  motherhood;  the  system  is  one  of  mere  pam- 
pering and  softening  of  body  and  soul.  How  little 
physical  resistance  for  the  task  of  motherhood  is 
possessed  by  the  women  of  well-to-do  classes  is 
shown  most  plainly  by  the  circumstances  that  so  many 
of  them  are  unable  to  bring  their  first  child  into 
the  world  without  resorting  to  an  operation,  and  that 
an  act  which  under  natural  conditions  occasions  a  suffer- 
ing of  only  a  few  hours  becomes  with  them  a  martyrdom 
of  several  days. 

But  intellectually  they  are  still  worse  equipped  for 
that  which  is  meant  to  be  the  chief  purpose  of  their  lives. 
Ignorance — that  mental  corollary  of  physical  virginity 
— since  all  knowledge  which  tends  to  arouse  independent 
desires  and  judgments  must  be  considered  as  something 
inimical  to  the  condition  of  good  breeding — this  ig^nor- 
ance  of  natural  functions  develops  a  dark  dread,  a 
cowardly  and  timid  feeling  which  is  directly  calculated 
to  disturb  and  vitiate  the  life-instinct.  For  the  sake  of 
a  mere  imaginary  advantage,  well-bred  girls  are  robbed 
of  that  inner  sense  of  security  which  comes  from  an 
insight  into  the  processes  of  Nature,  and  from  that 
identification  with  her  which  must,  especially  for 
the  female  sex,  possess  the  force  of  a  strong  religious 
conviction.  They  do  not  learn  to  love  Nature  as  the 
great  Mother  whose  care  it  is  to  protect  them  even  in 
their   darkest    hours,    but    to    fear    her   as    a   shadowy 


192  A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

monster  which,  draped  in  imaginary  terrors,  lies  lurking 
in  their  path. 

In  a  still  less  degree  could  a  life  chiefly  occupied  with 
the  cultivation  of  beauty  produce  a  state  of  mind  con- 
ducive to  maternity.  Maternity  constitutes  one  of  the 
most  violent  attacks  upon  beauty :  it  produces  not  only 
a  temporary  disfigurement,  but  frequently  a  lasting  one. 
It  is  precisely  because  their  beauty  is  so  transitory  that 
woman  should  be  loath  to  enact  the  role  of  the  fair  sex 
— since  by  this  they  doom  themselves  to  being  valued 
at  their  full  worth  for  only  a  small  fraction  of  their  lives. 

No;  if  maternity  were  the  decisive  factor  in  the 
education  of  the  female,  neither  the  element  of  weak- 
nesses nor  of  beauty  would  occupy  the  first  place  in  a 
valuation  of  womanhood.  If  we  glance  behind  the 
curtain  of  good-breeding,  we  behold  the  power  which 
dandles  the  dear  little  marionettes  to  and  fro — the  will 
of  man,  which  would  find  its  subjective  necessities 
materialised  in  the  woman. 

It  is  the  "  strong  hand  "  which  governs  here.  And 
if  women  care  to  achieve  the  right  of  a  free  personality 
for  themselves,  or  even  if  they  desire  to  be  trained  in 
a  more  efficient  manner  for  their  so-called  natural  voca- 
tion than  is  possible  under  the  modern  ideas  of  good 
breeding,  they  must  learn  to  regard  the  canon  of  ideal 
womanhood  as  that  which  it  really  is — not  an  ethical 
ideal,  but  a  sexual  one,  and  by  no  means  so  noble  in 
origin  as  it  would  seem. 


ON    THE    SUBJECT    OF   THE   ''STRONG 
HAND." 

It  is  remarkable  that  down  to  our  own  times  women 
have  taken  part  in  every  movement  which  has  had  for 
its  aim  the  emancipation  of  the  down-trodden  and  the 
amelioration  of  their  lot,  and  have  done  so  side  by  side 
with  men  and  on  an  equality  with  them  so  long  as  the 
matter  remained  at  issue,  but  that,  as  soon  as  the 
struggle  was  over,  the  victory  won,  and  a  party  formed, 
they  have  had  to  withdraw  into  the  background  again. 

The  most  conspicuous  historical  example  of  this  is 
offered  by  the  evolution  of  Christianity.  In  spite  of  the 
idea  of  the  equality  of  the  sexes  which  is  inherent  in 
the  basic  principles  of  Christianity,  in  spite  of  the  share 
taken  by  women  in  propagating  the  faith  and  in  braving 
martyrdom  for  it,  the  position  of  woman  in  the  Ger- 
manic-Christian world  was  not  substantially  altered,  at 
least,  not  so  far  as  the  laws  were  concerned,  from  what 
it  had  been  in  the  world  of  Pagan  Rome.  Women  were 
scarcely  better  off  under  the  new  order  of  things  than 
under  the  old,  even  though  during  the  days  of  persecu- 
tion they  had  defended  their  creed  with  the  same 
courage  and  self-sacrifice  as  the  men.  We  have  a  bad 
precedent  here,  and  women  have  every  reason  to  reflect 
upon  this  question :   Why  it  is  that  men  regard  them 


194         ^  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

as  their  equals  only  when  they  are  fellow-sufferers  under 
the  yoke? 

But  we  must  begin  with  the  inquiry :  What  sort  of 
man  is  it  who  will  have  nothing  in  common  with  women, 
who  will  not  suffer  her  to  enjoy  the  same  rights  as 
himself  ?  For  the  men  who  suffer  for  a  cause,  and  the 
men  who  carry  it  through  to  victory,  are  of  very 
different  types  of  being,  and  this  difference  is  not  with- 
out its  influence  upon  the  attitude  which  they  adopt 
towards  woman.  Very  few  of  them  are  able  to  distin- 
guish between  their  own  subjective  taste,  and  the 
demands  of  an  objective  fitness  of  things.  They  set  up 
as  a  model  for  the  entire  sex  those  qualities  which  they 
personally  most  need  and  court  in  a  woman. 

This  is  true  only  of  men  of  a  certain  pronounced 
type — men  masterful  in  love.  It  is  an  unfortunate 
thing,  only  too  noticeable,  that,  in  the  circles  of  the 
woman's  movement,  man  is  often  indiscriminately 
abused.  Yet  women  ought  certainly  never  to  forget  all 
that  they  owe  to  the  goodness,  the  magnanimity,  and  the 
sense  of  justice  of  individual  men.  If  these  individual 
men  were  unable  to  convert  the  world  at  large  to  their 
own  attitude  towards  women,  that  has  been  because 
they  were  unable  to  prevail  against  the  majority— just 
as  has  been  the  case  with  those  individual  women  who 
have  stood  forth  above  the  ordinary  level  of  their  sex. 

The  sexual  relationship  for  the  masterful  man  is 
bound  up  with  the  idea  that  woman  is  a  lower  order  of 
being,  essentially  different  from  man  but  created  for  his 
purposes.  The  sexual  relationship  ministers  to  his 
sense  of  superiority — it  gives  him  the  sensation  of 
power  and  possession.  He  cannot  think  of  woman 
except  as  belonging  to  him  and  dependent  upon  him. 


On  the  Subject  of  the  ^^  Strong  Hand''    195 

He  recognises  her  only  in  so  far  as  she  is  an  expedient. 
As  a  separate  individuality  like  himself,  with  aims  of 
her  own,  she  does  not  exist  for  him. 

It  may  be  said,  therefore,  that  the  position  of  the 
female  sex  in  life  is  established  in  accordance  with  the 
sexual  instincts  of  the  domineering  type  of  man.  The 
general  ideas  to  which  the  female  sex  is  expected  to 
conform  furnish  an  unmistakable  revelation  of  the  kind 
of  man  whose  needs  and  desires  they  practically  express. 

Masterfulness  in  love  manifests  itself  in  low  types  of 
men  and  in  lofty  types,  quite  independently  of  intel- 
lectual or  ethical  qualities,  though  perhaps  in  somewhat 
different  forms.  Within  the  confines  of  European 
civilisation  it  has  lost  its  full  force;  even  the  most 
masterful  of  Europeans  is  not  to  be  compared  with  the 
Asiatic  in  his  bearing  towards  woman.  It  is  in  the  East 
that  masterfulness  in  sexual  relations  is  encountered  in 
its  extremest  form,  and  atrocious  customs,  such  as  the 
sewing-up  of  women  among  the  tribes  living  near  the 
Red  Sea,  disclose  the  hideous  state  of  perversity  to 
which  it  sometimes  leads. 

In  Europe,  in  the  temperate  zones  of  humanity,  the 
most  primitive  type  of  the  masterful  man  is  the  wife- 
beating  husband.  In  his  case  the  masterful  impulse, 
which  on  a  higher  plane  finds  its  vent  in  intellectual 
spheres,  takes  the  form  of  physical  ill-treatment;  the 
"  strong  hand  "  is  here  to  be  met  with  literally,  and  not 
merely  as  a  figure  of  speech,  and  the  woman  of  primitive 
instincts  does  not  rebel  against  it. 

This  is  the  type  of  woman  in  whom — not  looking 
at  the  matter  merely  from  the  feminist  point  of  view — 
the  masterful  man  finds  his  justification,  for  her  sexual 
instincts  are  all  in  the  direction  of  self-surrender  and 

o  2 


196         A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

submission,  even  to  the  point  of  self-effacing  slavish- 
ness,  thus  corresponding  entirely  with  his  instincts  of 
mastery  and  superiority.  Is  it  not  natural  for  a  man 
whose  cravings  are  for  a  weak,  submissive,  clinging  wife, 
to  satisfy  his  own  sexual  instincts  according  to  his  in- 
herent need?  For  the  "real  woman,"  he  will  always 
be  the  "  right  man."  Indeed,  when  the  great  despots, 
the  men  of  action  and  of  invincible  will,  adopt  this 
masterful  attitude  in  love,  they  are,  after  all,  only 
practising  upon  women  what  they  practise  in  every 
other  field  of  life.  The  "  strong  hand  "  which  they  use 
towards  women  they  use  in  all  the  contingencies  of  life. 
They  ride  rough-shod  over  the  world  as  well  as  over 
their  wives,  and  they  sacrifice  their  weaker  fellow-men 
to  their  own  ends.  In  this  type  of  men  masterfulness  in 
love  is  the  more  easily  comprehended  in  that  it  is  con- 
sistent with  their  whole  personality.  Moreover,  they 
compensate  their  dependents  for  their  tyranny  over 
them  by  the  protection  they  afford  them  and  by  the 
generosity  which  so  often  accompanies  their  strength. 
Towards  women  these  men  are  often  not  lacking  in 
chivalry — as  may  be  noted  in  many  instances  in  the 
career  of  Napoleon,  the  greatest  of  all  the  despots  of 
modern  times. 

Relationship  with  the  female  sex  would  appear  im- 
possible to  most  such  men  of  the  higher  masterful  order 
without  some  element  of  chivalry,  and  with  them  the 
*' strong  hand"  becomes  in  due  course  the  "helping 
hand  "  without  which  they  imagine  that  women  could 
not  stand  alone  in  this  rough  world.  Thus  it  happens 
that  they  would  be  loth  to  forgo  some  measure  of 
gallantry  in  their  attitude  towards  the  sex.  It  would  be 
ungracious  to  insist  upon   their  own  superiority  over 


On  the  Subject  of  the  "  Strong  Hand  "    1 97 

beings  whom  they  consider  inferior  to  themselves. 
Therefore  they  devise  a  kind  of  social  form  in  which 
the  semblance  of  subjugation  effects  a  compromise  with 
the  feeling  of  superiority,  a  game  in  which  strength  and 
weakness  seem  to  change  places;  but  which,  being  only 
a  game,  does  not  really  endanger  their  masculine 
supremacy. 

But  this  is  a  game  which  they  play  only  with  those 
women  to  whom  they  are  not  drawn  by  the  full  force 
of  their  nature.  What  such  a  masterful  love  really 
signifies,  when  in  earnest,  only  the  wife  in  the  first 
instance  can  reveal,  and,  as  a  generalisation  from  sub- 
jective needs  to  objective  moral  demands,  "  woman  " 
as  a  sex. 

The  masterful  man's  first  requirement  from  a  woman, 
if  he  is  to  look  upon  her  with  respect,  is  that  she  should 
exercise  severe  self-restraint  in  sexual  matters;  he  would 
rather  have  her  quite  cold  than  that  she  should  show 
signs  of  sexual  emotion  akin  to  his  own.  He  cherishes 
the  idea  that  the  woman  offers  herself  up  as  a  sacrifice, 
even  when  surrendering  herself  to  a  man  she  loves 
(Lombroso);  that  wives  and  mothers  who  are  innately 
virtuous  experience  only  the  faintest  desire  in  regard  to 
a  man,  and  sacrifice  themselves  in  fulfilling  their  con- 
jugal duties  even  with  a  husband  whom  they  love 
(Jentsch);  that  a  woman  cannot  acknowledge  her  sexual 
needs  without  losing  her  self-respect  (Fichte),  and  so  on. 

To  the  man  of  higher  order  and  finer  sensibility  this 
idea  of  the  dutiful  but  reluctant  self-surrender  of  the 
wife  is  unbearable,  but  it  flatters  the  sexual  instincts  of 
the  masterful  man.  He  will  not  accept  the  surrender 
as  a  gift  willingly  bestowed,  but  prefers  to  regard  it  as 
tribute  enforced  by  his  stronger  will.     He  thinks  of  a 


198         A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

woman  only  as  being  at  his  disposal.  It  was  a  man  of 
very  different  temperament  who  first  spoke  of  a  woman 
as  "  bestowing  her  favour"  upon  him. 

The  preference  for  coldness  in  women  would  seem 
to  have  its  origin  in  the  law  of  contrast  which  plays  so 
great  a  role  in  sexual  attraction.  The  masterful  lover 
lacks  "  that  fine  manly  tenderness  which  should  make  a 
man  cherish  the  self-respect  of  the  woman  he  loves  and 
guard  her  against  himself"  (Jacobsen);  the  strength  of 
his  sexual  desire,  over  which  he  has  ordinarily  no  con- 
trol once  it  is  awakened,  leads  him  to  look  for  resistance 
in  the  woman.  Instinctively  he  turns  to  the  type  of 
woman  whose  passivity  corresponds  with  his  aggressive- 
ness, and  thus  is  supplied  with  the  balance  which  he 
himself  lacks. 

The  disproportionately  high  estimation  in  which 
virginity  is  held  arises  from  similar  feelings.  It  is 
always  the  masterful  lover  who  allows  himself  so  much 
freedom  in  his  sexual  relations,  who,  in  choosing  a  wife, 
sets  such  store  by  untarnished  virginity  of  mind  and 
body,  and  who  has  no  forgiveness  for  what  is  called  a 
"slip"  on  the  part  of  the  woman  before  marriage, 
even  though  it  may  have  been  in  the  nature  of  the  most 
genuine  self-sacrifice.  Hence  it  occurs  that  the  bour- 
geois code  of  morals  lays  more  weight  on  the  cultiva- 
tion of  innocence  than  on  anything  else  in  the  education 
of  young  girls — or,  at  least,  on  the  cultivation  of  ignor- 
ance, that  very  illusory  substitute  for  innocence. 

For  the  woman  without  sexual  experience  corre- 
sponds best  with  the  masterful  man's  theory  that  sexual 
feelings  are  foreign  to  the  sex.  In  her,  too,  he  seems 
to  see  that  guarantee  of  faithfulness  which,  fettered  by 
his  subjective  ideas  of  woman,  he  is  unable  to  discover 


On  the  Subject  of  the  "  Strong  Hand "     199 

elsewhere.  According  to  the  masterful  man,  a  weak, 
inferior  creature,  without  individuality — such  as  the 
woman  of  his  conception — can  have  no  control  over 
herself;  she  is  bound  to  succumb  to  temptation  once 
she  comes  under  the  power  of  a  masculine  will.  The 
idea  of  fidelity  in  fulfilment  of  a  plighted  troth  has  no 
place  in  his  picture  of  woman;  he  can  believe  only  in 
that  fidelity  which  Is  of  his  own  contriving — the  fruit 
of  his  watchfulness,  his  foresight,  his  distrust.  His 
relationship  with  his  wife  is  always  in  danger  in  his 
eyes,  and  he  keeps  a  jealous  eye  on  all  strangers.  Hence 
all  those  barbarous  decrees  of  the  paternity  laws — all 
those  enactments  which  hand  the  wife  over  to  the  hus- 
band as  though  she  were  an  ignorant  child,  so  that  he 
may  guard  the  exclusiveness  of  his  property. 

According  to  the  psychology  of  the  masterful  lover, 
the  wife  will  always  be  the  bondwoman  of  the  man. 
For  those  who  feel  as  he  there  has  never  been  any 
doubt  as  to  the  right  of  a  husband  to  kill  a  wife  who 
has  been  unfaithful  to  him;  and  the  fight  caused  by 
jealousy — that  primitive  method  of  sexual  defence  which 
is  common  also  to  male  animals — is  only  another  ex- 
pression of  that  sense  of  ownership  upon  which  are 
founded  the  sexual  relations  of  the  masterful  lover. 

What  makes  it  necessary  to  combat  this  form  of 
masculinity  is  the  state  of  terrorism  which  It  Involves, 
and  which  bears  most  hardly  upon  the  higher  order  of 
cultured  women.  For  this  type  of  man  shuts  his  eyes  to 
the  existence  of  any  other  kind  of  woman  than  that  of 
which  he  has  need — a  position  based  upon  the  notion 
that  all  women  are  of  a  piece,  and  are  scarcely  distin- 
guishable one  from  another.  "  One  woman  is  so  like 
another,"  Max  Nordau  asserts,  "  that  if  you  know  one. 


200  A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

you  know  all,  with  a  few  exceptions."  The  similarity 
between  all  women  is  one  of  the  chief  articles  of  faith 
in  the  masterful  man's  knowledge  of  the  sex;  and  this 
view  is  so  widely  accepted  that  we  must  look  upon  it  as 
a  very  noteworthy  advance  in  feeling  when  a  man 
says,  "What  does  a  man  know  about  women?  How 
many  women  can  he  ever  really  get  to  know?  "  It  is  a 
thousand  to  one  that  the  man  who  speaks  thus  does  not 
belonof  to  the  class  of  the  Masterful  Lover. 

It  is  in  the  feelings  of  mastery  that  the  illusion  of 
understanding  the  whole  sex  finds  its  oris^in.  Would  it 
not  prove  one  of  the  most  deep-going  influences  for 
conversion  possible  for  him  to  encounter,  were  the  mas- 
terful lover  to  become  acquainted  with  even  a  small 
fraction  of  the  female  sex  ?  So  long  as  he  thinks  he 
knows  all  women  he  may  flatter  himself  that  he  rules 
them  all,  at  least  by  his  knowledge;  but  would  not 
those  who  stand  outside  his  sphere  of  knowledge  also 
stand  out  against  his  superiority? 

Hence,  he  is  neither  competent  to  formulate  in  his 
mind  a  manifold  and  comprehensive  idea  of  woman- 
kind, nor  is  his  own  hard,  unmalleable  nature  suscept- 
ible of  an  inner  approach  and  a  mingling  of  soul.  So 
he  finds  everywhere  the  one  type  of  woman  which  he 
knows.  There  is  nothing  he  is  so  unwilling  to  admit 
as  that  there  are  exceptions  to  this  one  type.  He  prefers 
to  designate  as  pathological  anomalies  all  aspects  of 
womanliness  that  do  not  accord  with  it.  A  woman  who 
seeks  independence,  a  woman  of  strongly-marked  indi- 
viduality, is  in  his  eyes  either  a  neurotic  or  else  a  mass 
of  affectation;  and  he  always  detects  the  influence  of  a 
man  in  anything  that  a  woman  happens  to  achieve  in  the 
field  of  the  intellect.     Nothing  that  women  of  mark  can 


On  the  Subject  of  the  ^'Strong  Hand"'    201 

do  or  say  alters  his  attitude  in  the  least;  the  only  effect 
is  to  arouse  his  anger,  his  wrath,  or  his  mockery.  Thus 
it  was  that  Nietzsche  was  not  ashamed  to  talk  about  the 
"  corruption  of  the  instincts  "  in  the  case  of  women 
who  wished  to  emulate  Mme.  de  Stael  or  Mme.  Roland 
or  George  Sand;  and  he  declared  that  "among  men 
these  are  merely  the  three  absurd  women  and  nothing 
more,"  although  George  Sand  exercised  extraordinary 
influence  over  many  eminent  men,  and  in  their  eyes 
certainly  could  not  have  been  an  "absurd  woman." 

Such  men  are  not  to  be  moved  to  sympathy  or  appre- 
ciation even  by  the  sight  of  the  increased  burdens  and 
troubles  assumed  by  the  woman  who  elects  to  follow  the 
intellectual  life — burdens  greater  than  those  of  the  man 
for  many  reasons.  He  recognises  no  bonds  of  kinship 
with  her  through  her  lot  being  similar  to  his  or  by 
reason  of  feelings  and  experiences  common   to  both. 

On  the  contrary,  this  very  similarity  irritates  him, 
for  he  regards  as  insupportable  the  idea  of  a  woman 
being  akin  to  him.  Such  an  idea,  to  his  mind,  is  con- 
trary to  nature.  When  he  sees  a  woman  contending 
against  the  same  troubles  and  anxieties  which  he  himself 
experiences  as  a  natural  consequence  of  his  intellectual 
activities,  he  regards  her  as  the  shocking  result  of 
straying  from  the  right  and  natural  path  of  womankind, 
and  passes  her  by  with  indifference  or  with  annoyance. 

Another  idea  of  the  masterful  lover  which  also  is 
clearly  not  the  outcome  of  experience  is  to  be  met  with 
in  his  conviction  that  he  may  conquer  every  woman  if  he 
so  wishes.  This  illusion  of  being  irresistible  is  common 
even  to  men  who  seem  in  no  way  qualified,  either  by 
personal  appearance  or  by  fortune  to  exercise  such 
remarkable  powers  of  attraction.     It  must  be  that  this 


202  A  Survey  of  tJie  Woman  Problem 

certainty  arises  from  a  sort  of  auto-suggestion.  The 
higher  type  of  connoisseur  in  womankind  knows,  how- 
ever— as  Paul  Bourget  observes  in  his  study  of  the 
physiology  of  modern  love — that  he  can  make  an  im- 
pression only  upon  a  particular  kind  of  woman,  and  that 
with  other  kinds  he  will  have  no  success.  This  is  a  self- 
understood  matter  to  persons  with  refined  sexual  sensi- 
bilities. Just  as  with  the  idea  of  his  universal  know- 
ledge of  woman,  so,  too,  the  illusion  that  he  is  irresist- 
ible to  the  entire  female  sex  takes  complete  possession 
of  the  masterful  lover.  .  .  . 

Even  when  he  does  not  go  to  these  extremes  of 
vanity,  his  feeling  of  superiority  over  women  remains 
unassailable.  Characteristic  expression  of  this  feeling 
was  given  by  the  man  who  said :  "  I  have  been  helped 
out  of  all  the  holes  I  blundered  into  in  the  course  of 
my  life  by  the  intelligence  and  energy  of  women,  and 
yet  I  can't  get  rid  of  a  feeling  that  I  am  superior  to 
them."  This  feeling,  in  truth,  is  not  based  on  rational, 
easily  explicable  motives.  For  if  he  used  his  reason, 
the  man  of  the  grosser  average  could  not  but  realise 
that  he  is  inferior  to  at  least  those  women  who  are 
intellectually  advanced.  And  the  man  above  the 
average  cannot  base  any  sense  of  superiority  over 
women  upon  the  purely  sexual  attributes  which  he  pos- 
sesses in  common  with  the  lowest  of  his  fellows;  nor 
would  any  attempt  to  base  his  superiority  upon  higher 
sexual  qualifications  rest  upon  sound  biological  founda- 
tions. The  male  sex  does  not  in  general  stand  higher 
in  the  animal  world  than  the  female,  which  has  just  as 
much  to  do  with  the  transmission  and  maintenance  of 
life.  The  great  difference  between  them  lies  only  in 
their  respective  share  in  the  mechanism  of  generation. 


On  the  Subject  of  the  *■'■  Strong  Hand''    203 

It  is  to  the  emotional  energy  connected  with  this  func- 
tion that  we  may  attribute  the  feeling  of  superiority 
which  is  peculiar  to  the  human  male  as  his  "  preroga- 
tive." 

If  we  are  to  understand  the  significance  of  this  feeling 
as  a  natural  phenomenon,  we  must  regard  it  as  a  sexual 
characteristic  which  qualifies  the  individual  for  the  per- 
formance of  his  duty  to  the  species.  Thus  viewed,  the 
illusion  of  superiority  is  seen  to  be  a  device  of  Nature 
for  providing  the  man  with  the  necessary  aggressive 
self-confidence  required  for  his  sexual  conquest;  and  we 
note  that  it  finds  its  source  in  that  primitive  order  of 
life  in  which  the  individual  is  rather  a  propagative  unit 
than  a  personality.  On  the  higher  planes  of  life,  in 
which  the  mutual  relations  of  the  sexes  take  on  the  shape 
of  love,  we  find  quite  other  and  loftier  operations  of 
the  soul  life  which  annul  these  teleological  devices  of 
Nature.  This,  of  course,  does  not  exclude  the  possi- 
bility of  the  sexual  instincts  remaining  primitive  in  an 
individual  highly  organised  in  other  respects. 

So  long  as  domineering  love  seems  to  be  the  expres- 
sion of  abounding  vitality,  bound  up  with  a  strongly- 
developed  will-power,  so  long  as  he  who  manifests  these 
attributes  is  a  "  complete  man,"  containing  in  his  being 
the  equivalents  of  his  masterful  sex  nature,  this  sort  of 
love  remains  a  natural  phenomenon  which  must  be 
accepted  as  such  like  any  other. 

But  we  know  what  happens  to  primitive  masculinity 
under  the  influences  of  a  high  degree  of  civilisation. 
The  process  of  disruption  bears  most  severely  upon  the 
masterful  lover.  He  is  thrown  out  of  balance  in  pro- 
portion as  the  measure  of  his  power  of  personality  falls 
below  the  claims  of  his  sexual  temperament.     He  can 


204         A  Survey  of  the  IVofnan  Problem 

no  longer  in  ordinary  life  avail  himself  of  that  "  strong 
hand "  which  he  relied  upon  in  his  relations  with 
woman;  he  is  often  found  to  be  singularly  lacking  in 
vigour  and  self-control.  He  experiences  a  dyscrasy,  or 
sense  of  discord  within  him,  resulting  from  a  conflict 
between  his  sexual  nature  and  the  rest  of  his  being,  and 
this  becomes  to  him  a  fateful  menace.  The  man  who 
cannot  use  the  method  of  the  "  strong  hand  "  in  regard 
to  life  generally — this  being  the  sole  basis  of  mastery — 
cannot  set  himself  in  a  right  relation  to  the  wife  who 
lies  under  the  spell  of  his  amorous  nature;  he  must 
inevitably  disappoint  her  in  all  his  conflicts  with  external 
circumstances.  Between  his  sexual  life  and  his  career 
as  a  citizen  there  exists  a  latent  contradiction  which 
secretly  is,  perhaps,  as  great  a  trial  to  him  as  to  the  wife 
who  is  dependent  upon  him. 

More  often,  indeed,  it  happens  that  the  Masterful 
Lover  remains  in  a  state  of  pleasant  infatuation  which 
blinds  him  to  the  fact  that  his  superiority  exists  nowhere 
except  in  the  sphere  of  sex.  For  these  men  woman  is 
the  best  audience — she  is  essential  to  them,  however 
high  they  may  consider  themselves  above  her.  Their 
relations  with  women  are  always  coloured  by  an  element 
of  vulgar  boastfulness.  However  tame  and  feeble  they 
may  in  reality  be,  these  men  love  to  swagger  before 
women's  eyes  like  stage-heroes,  toying  absurdly  with  the 
hilts  of  the  swords  which  their  arms  would  now  be  too 
weak  to  wield. 

To  the  unprejudiced  looker-on  there  is  something 
very  ridiculous  in  this  which  is  not  confined  to  man's 
intercourse  with  woman.  And  yet  a  certain  amount  of 
boastfulness  and  swagger  has  its  place  in  the  erotic 
equipment  of  man,  for  Nature  has  devised  it  as  a  help 


On  the  Subject  of  the  ^^  Strong  Hand''    205 

to  him  in  wooing,  and  it  is  of  a  piece  with  the  way  in 
which  the  innocent  peacock  spreads  his  tail  before  his 
female.  There  is  no  doubt  that  it  has  its  due  hypnotic 
effect  upon  the  women  who  are  susceptible  to  that  type  of 
man.  It  plays  the  same  role  in  men  that  coquetry  does 
in  women — it  is,  in  fact,  the  masculine  form  of  coquetry. 

To  the  more  highly  organised  type  of  man,  whose 
characteristic  trait  is  a  stern  self-analysis,  this  kind  of 
display  is  repugnant,  yet  it  will  be  found  to  exist  even 
in  him  in  proportion  to  the  degree  in  which  he  is 
influenced  by  the  emotion  of  sexual  masterfulness. 

We  have  in  German  literature  a  classical  instance  of 
the  way  in  which  this  masculine  tendency  to  swagger 
is  viewed  by  even  the  noblest  and  most  eminent  of  men 
when  they  have  a  slight  touch  of  the  masterful  lover  in 
their  composition.  This  is  in  Schiller's  Wallenste'in. 
Nowhere  is  the  contrast  more  conspicuous  between  a 
man's  words  and  his  actions  than  in  this  drama.  Its 
real  significance,  however,  lies  in  the  fact  that  the 
element  of  swagger,  being  a  natural  expression  of  mas- 
culinity, is  unintentional  throughout — perhaps  a  sur- 
vival of  the  elementary  emotions  of  its  author,  which 
plumed  themselves  so  bravely  in  his  Worth  of  Men. 
On  every  page  we  have  such  passages  as  :  "  Think  not  I 
am  a  woman,"  or,  "  Be  not  like  women  who  forever 
must  return  to  their  first  word,"  or,  "  111  agrees  the  wail 
of  women  with  the  deeds  of  men."  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
the  deeds  of  his  men,  who  seldom  care  to  assume  the 
responsibility  of  a  deed,  do  not  justify  this  attitude  of 
superiority  in  the  least. 

The  fact  that  the  scene  is  laid  in  a  period  in  which 
the  warlike  element  in  man  flared  up  for  the  last  time 
before  disappearing  altogether,  throws  the  weakness  and 


2o6         A  Survey  of  the   Woman  Problem 

womanishness  of  these  swaggerers  into  greater  relief. 
What  it  serves  to  bring  home  to  us  is  the  dualism 
inherent  in  the  manhood  of  a  civilised  age — a  manhood 
striving  to  look  fierce  and  formidable  in  order  to  justify 
its  need  of  sexual  contrast. 

In  modern  literature  Strindberg's  The  Father  gives 
another  and  much  more  instructive  example  of  the 
unconscious  portrayal  of  masculine  conceit.  The  play 
may,  indeed,  be  designated  the  tragedy  of  masculine 
conceit,  although  the  author  meant  it  to  be  the  tragedy 
of  fatherhood,  depicting  the  martyrdom  to  which  Nature 
herself  condemns  man  in  his  capacity  as  father.  The 
hero,  a  riding-master,  who  suffers  all  the  sorrows  of 
paternity,  is  not  the  kind  of  man  who  knows  how  to 
rule,  and  he  himself  is  conscious  of  his  lack  in  this 
respect.  Nevertheless,  he  is  always  seeking  to  pose  as 
master  in  the  eyes  of  the  women  of  his  circle.  "  It  is  as 
though  I  were  moving  about  in  a  tiger's  cage,"  he 
remarks,  "  and  if  I  didn't  hold  a  red-hot  iron  in  front 
of  their  faces,  they  would  all  rush  at  me  the  first  chance 
they  got  and  tear  me  to  pieces."  He  does  not  realise 
that  it  is  the  red-hot  iron  that  transforms  all  these  quite 
ordinary  domestic  cats  into  tigresses.  "  I  tolerate  no 
encroachments  on  my  rights,  either  by  women  or  by 
children,"  he  blusters;  and  his  wife,  having  said  that 
she  has  never  seen  a  man  whose  superior  she  did  not 
feel  herself  to  be,  he  challenges  her  to  deadly  combat 
with  the  boastful  retort :  "  Ah,  then  you  shall  see  one 
who  is  superior  to  you,  and  in  a  way  that  you  will  never 
forget."  And  yet  at  the  first  show  of  opposition  he 
gives  way  in  angry  impotence.  Distracted  by  doubts 
as  to  the  legitimacy  of  his  child,  he  bursts  into  tears  in 
front  of  his  wife,  and  cries  out  to  her,  "  I  merely  yearn 


On  the  Subject  of  the  ^'Strong  Hcuid''    207 

for  sympathy  like  a  sick  man;  I  put  aside  the  symbols 
of  my  strength  and  crave  mercy  on  my  life."  He 
confesses  to  her  that  he  thought  he  had  noticed  her 
contempt  for  his  unmanliness,  and  that  he  had  sought 
to  win  her  love  by  showing  himself  a  man.  By  so  doing 
he  has  spoilt  everything;  for  his  wife,  who  had  been 
inclined  to  forgive  his  weakness  so  long  as  he  appealed 
to  the  maternal  element  in  her  as  her  friend,  is  ashamed 
of  him  as  a  lover.  "  The  mother  was  your  friend,  but 
the  wife  is  your  enemy." 

Strindberg  gets  very  close  here  to  the  problem  of  that 
tragic  conflict  which  is  the  outcome  of  the  dual  nature, 
the  antagonistic  instincts,  in  the  modern  man.  The  in- 
sight of  the  artist,  however,  soon  becomes  darkened  over 
by  the  subjectivity  of  the  masculine  personality.  He 
leaves  the  problem  on  one  side  and  proceeds  along  the 
lines  of  his  own  tendency.  "  Love  between  the  sexes 
is  a  battle.  .  .  ." 

This  conception  of  love  as  a  battle  is  one  of  the  dis- 
tinctive signs  of  the  masterful  lover.  He  is  blind  to 
the  fact  that  love  in  its  very  essence  is  a  truce  in  that 
perpetual  state  of  warfare  which  prevails  throughout  the 
world,  and  that  no  relationship  between  the  sexes  attains 
to  love  so  long  as  it  contains  the  element  of  conflict.  He 
can  think  only  of  lording  it  over  women.  It  is  only 
because  masterfulness  in  love  seldom  exists  in  its  primi- 
tive, unadultered  form  that  the  mutual  attitude  of  the 
sexes  is  not  marked  by  that  "  eternal  and  hostile  strain  " 
of  which  Nietzsche  speaks,  and  that  the  Oriental  treat- 
ment of  the  female  sex  is  confined  to  those  races  in 
which  no  modification  of  the  feeling  of  love  has  taken 
place. 


2o8         A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

By  love,  as  here  used,  is  meant  the  emotion  which 
permits  of  the  fulfilling  of  the  task  of  generation  in  a 
spirit  of  self-respect,  as  distinguished  from  lust,  which 
is  limited  to  a  purely  physical  desire  for  sexual  inter- 
course. 

A  real  communion  of  souls  between  individuals  of 
opposite  sex  is  not  possible  for  all  temperaments.  This 
necessitates  a  high  development  in  the  sphere  of  psycho- 
sexuality.  The  higher  and  more  perfect  it  is,  the  higher, 
more  perfect,  and  permanent  will  be  the  emotion.  The 
highest  development  of  the  emotion  of  love  involves  a 
kind  of  genius. 

This  genius,  this  faculty  for  ideal  love,  stands  on  the 
highest  plane  of  psycho-sexual  development,  while  the 
masterful  lover  stands  on  the  lowest,  at  the  point  where 
sheer  sexual  instinct  is  evolving  ideas  still  raised  but 
little  above  the  most  primitive  emotions.  There  are 
various  stages  between  these  two  planes,  the  great 
majority  here,  as  elsewhere,  occupying  a  middle  place. 
If  we  deal  here  only  with  extremes,  that  is  because  it  is 
only  the  extremes  that  stand  out  clearly,  and  enable  us 
to  interpret  certain  phenomena  of  life.  And  if  we  have 
spoken  only  of  the  genius  for  love  as  exemplified  in  the 
male  sex,  that  is  not  because  it  is  not  also  to  be  met 
with  in  the  female,  even  though  less  frequently,  as  with 
other  forms  of  genius.  In  the  very  highest  order  of 
humanity,  in  truth,  whether  we  look  at  genius  in  the 
field  of  art  or  of  morals  or  in  any  other,  we  shall  see  that 
the  differences  between  the  sexes  tend  more  and  more 
to  disappear. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  feelings  of  the  man  with  a 
genius  for  love  differ  so  widely  from  those  of  the 
masterful  lover  that  they  scarcely  seem  to  have  any  bond 


On  the  Subject  of  the  ^'■Strong  Hand''    209 

in  common.  If  the  hidden  basis  of  man's  feeling  of 
superiority  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  he  is  able  to 
enforce  his  sexual  will  against  that  of  the  woman, 
whereas  she  cannot  enforce  her  will  against  his,  we  may 
possibly,  in  the  last  analysis,  trace  to  this  elementary 
cause  that  feeling  of  contrast,  of  aloofness,  of  difference 
in  kind,  which  makes  the  man  master  of  the  woman.  In 
love,  however,  the  man  of  his  own  accord  puts  aside  this 
innate  source  of  strength.  The  development  of  his 
power  of  love  brings  with  it  a  new  faculty  which  changes 
the  desire  of  contrast  into  the  desire  of  mutual  sympathy 
and  understanding — the  faculty,  namely,  of  self-abnega- 
tion. Thus  comes  about  that  miraculous  phenomenon 
in  the  soul  of  a  man — the  complete  transformation  of 
the  primitive  instincts,  the  complete  reversal  of  his 
teleological  nature. 

The  man  with  a  genius  for  love  approaches  beings 
of  the  opposite  sex  with  intuitive  understanding,  and  is 
capable  of  completely  assimilating  himself  with  them. 
He  feels  towards  them  as  though  they  had  been  his  pre- 
destined affinities;  his  love-experiences  are  attended  by 
emotions  of  completion,  of  consummation,  of  the  libera- 
tion of  his  essential  nature,  or  even  by  those  of  a  mystic 
transfusion.  The  sexual  life  entails  for  him  not  a  loss 
of  self-respect,  but  the  improvement  and  enrichment  of 
his  soul  through  its  communion  with  these  objects  of 
his  love. 

But  the  genius  for  loving  is  not  the  outcome  of  a 
wide  range  of  conquests;  its  distinctive  constituents 
have,  indeed,  nothing  to  do  with  the  question,  any 
more  than  they  are  to  be  identified  with  an  exclusive 
fidelity  to  one  woman.  Among  those  who  have  pos- 
sessed it  have  been  men  like  Novalis,  who  have  devoted 

p 


2 1  o         A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

themselves  so  fully  to  one  loved  being  that  they  have  felt 
it  to  be  their  greatest  honour  to  give  up  life  itself,  if 
death  should  sunder  them;  while  there  have  been  other 
polygamous  natures,  like  Goethe,  who  have  been  able  to 
give  their  love  to  more  than  one  woman  at  a  time. 
Nothing  could  give  a  better  idea  than  those  passages 
in  his  letters  to  Frau  von  Stein  in  which  Goethe  de- 
scribes his  visits  to  Friederika  and  Lilly  after  many 
years  of  separation.  "  I  cannot  convey  to  you,"  he 
writes,  "  the  beautiful  emotion  which  I  experience. 
Though  I  am  now  on  quite  matter-of-fact  terms  with 
them,  I  have  for  them  a  feeling  of  really  deep  affection. 
There  is  in  it  a  quite  ethereal  happiness — it  is  as  though 
I  had  been  saying  a  rosary  of  which  the  beads  were 
memories  of  the  truest,  the  most  endurable  and  unex- 
tinguishable  friendship." 

In  the  bonds  which  unite  the  man  who  has  this  genius 
for  loving  with  the  women  of  his  choice,  there  is  nothing 
of  that  hostility  or  enmity  which,  in  the  case  of  the 
masterful  lover,  declares  itself  in  the  moment  when  the 
chain  of  sexual  attraction  breaks.  These  bonds  consist 
in  that  feeling  of  "  unextinguishable  friendship  "  which 
does  not  end  when  the  phase  of  rapture  has  passed. 

It  would  perhaps  be  even  true  to  say  that  the  genius 
for  loving  finds  its  deepest  and  strongest  expression  in 
a  man's  relations  with  women,  and  not  in  his  friendships 
with  men.  Richard  Wagner  wrote  to  Mathilde  Wesen- 
donk  that  only  a  loving  woman  could  give  him  the  com- 
fort he  needed  when  longing  to  find  peace  and  rest  in 
the  harbourage  of  some  human  heart,  and  that  experi- 
ence had  shown  him  that,  despite  many  noble  attempts, 
he  could  not  derive  this  comfort  from  friendship  with 
men. 


On  the  Subject  of  the  '■'■Strong  Hand''    211 

The  nature  of  the  man  gifted  with  the  genius  for 
loving  shows  itself  in  its  noblest  and  most  beautiful 
form  in  these  letters  of  Wagner's.  A  limitless  self- 
abnegation,  a  craving  for  unrestricted  community  of 
soul,  are  here  voiced  with  an  intimacy  which  is  the  more 
wonderful  in  that  Wagner's  impetuosity  and  forcefulness 
of  character  make  him  stand  out  as  a  conspicuously 
"manly"  man.  Wagner  feels  he  cannot  do  enough  to 
convince  the  woman  he  loves  that  he  cannot  live  without 
her,  that  he  is  just  as  she  is,  that  he  feels  as  she  feels, 
that  he  shares  all  her  emotions  of  joy  and  sorrow,  and 
that  even  his  art  is  dear  to  him  only  in  so  far  as  it  accords 
with  the  deep  harmony  that  unites  him  to  her.  His  real 
earnestness  of  thought  did  not  lie  in  his  work,  but  in 
her.  "  Nothing  has  significance,  nothing  has  any  pur- 
pose for  me,  save  through  you.  .  .  .  With  you  I  can 
achieve  everything,  without  you  nothing!  " 

How  different  is  this  language  from  what  the  master- 
ful lover  is  wont  to  use !  And  we  find  an  astonishingly 
close  parallel  to  Wagner's  outpourings  in  Goethe's 
letters  to  Frau  von  Stein.  The  same  joyful  recognition 
of  the  lover's  need,  the  same  feeling  of  happiness  in 
the  completeness  of  their  mutual  understanding,  the 
same  unreserved  surrender  of  self  to  the  woman  of  his 
heart :  "  Yes,  dear  Lotte,  I  realise  fully  now  for  the  first 
time  how  truly  you  are,  and  must  ever  be,  the  other 
half  of  my  soul.  I  am  no  longer  a  solitary  being,  stand- 
ing alone.  Through  you  I  have  supported  all  my  in- 
firmities, protected  the  vulnerable  sides  of  my  nature, 
and  perfected  my  faulty  being.  ...  I  see  how  little  I 
count  for  by  myself,  and  how  necessary  to  me  your 
presence  must  ever  remain,  so  that  I  may  become 
whole.  ...  I  beg  of  you,  falteringly,  to  complete  your 

P   2 


212         A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

work  and  make  me  good  through  and  through;  .  .  . 
mould  me  and  shape  me  in  such  wise  that  I  may  remain 
worthy  of  you!  " 

The  idea  that  it  is  the  man  who  must  mould  and 
shape,  *'  forming  "  his  wife  in  accordance  with  his  own 
ideas  and  his  own  will,  and  that  she  is  to  be  indebted  to 
him  for  her  entire  spiritual  life — an  idea  expressed  so 
frankly,  for  instance,  in  the  letters  of  Heinrich  von 
Kleist  to  his  bride — is  here  replaced  by  a  conception 
absolutely  opposed  to  it :  all  trace  of  pride  of  sex  has 
gone  and  self-surrender  has  taken  its  place. 

The  inspiration  derived  from  woman  sets  free  the 
highest  gifts  of  the  soul  in  the  case  of  men  who  have 
the  genius  for  loving.  Woman  in  their  eyes  is  the 
intermediary  between  the  world  of  the  senses  and  the 
Godhead — as  Sophie  von  Kiihn  was  to  Novalis;  a  guide 
to  perfection — as  Beatrice  was  to  Dante;  or  a  dispenser 
of  all  knowledge  and  all  spirituality — as  Vittoria  Colonna 
was  to  Michael  Angelo,  who  wrote  : 

"  Out  of  my  lips  thy  spirit  still  comes  flowing  ; 
From  will  of  thine  this  will  of  mine  is  growing, 
And  thy  heart's  ardours  in  my  heart  are  glowing. 
Methinks  my  being  like  the  moon's  dependeth 
On  that  great  light  the  sun  of  heaven  spendeth, 
Which,  having  not,  my  brightness  straightway  endeth." 

And  Goethe  declared  the  greatest  influence  in  his  life 
to  have  been  Charlotte  von  Stein,  with  Shakespeare 
coming  next : 

"  Lida,  Gliick  der  nSchsten  Nahe 
William,  Stern  der  schcJnsten  Hohe, 
Euch  verdank  ich,  was  ich  bin. 
Tag  und  Jahre  sind  verschwunden, 
Und  doch  ruht  auf  jenen  Stunden 
Meines  Wertes  Vollgewinn." 


On  the  Subject  of  the  ^^  Strong  Hand''    213 

The  wealth  of  graceful  and  charming  fantasies  in 
which  the  genius  for  loving  has  found  expression 
belongs  to  the  noblest  treasures  of  human  emotion;  and 
the  literature  of  all  races  shows  us  how  the  soul  of 
woman  inspires  this  capacity  for  love  when  artistic 
genius  goes  with  it.  We  may  tell  from  the  individuality 
and  depth  of  the  characteristics  with  which  an  author 
endows  the  women  in  his  books  to  what  extent  the 
genius  for  loving  accompanies  his  genius  as  a  writer. 
We  know  the  difference  there  is  in  this  respect  between 
the  women  of  Goethe  and  those  of  Schiller;  and  if  it 
must  be  recognised  that  Schiller's  heroines  are  lacking 
in  womanly  individuality,  the  cause  of  this  may  be  traced 
to  his  inability  to  realise  the  woman  in  himself.  It  is 
in  this  faculty  that  the  genius  for  loving  finds  its  origin, 
its  nature  being  more  nearly  akin  to,  and  more  in  sym- 
pathy with,  beings  of  the  opposite  sex.  In  this  mystery 
of  the  highest  form  of  love  the  division  between  the 
sexes  disappears,  and  there  results  a  veritable  blending 
of  two  souls. 

What  we  find  embodied  in  the  figure  of  Don  Juan 
is  at  the  opposite  pole  from  the  genius  for  loving.  Don 
Juan  is  merely  the  male  conqueror,  the  virtuoso  of  sex 
— the  unresting  hunter  of  a  quarry  he  never  captures : 
woman.  For  even  in  its  extremest  form  mere  sexuality 
can  never  establish  a  communion  of  souls  between  man 
and  woman;  he  who  has  not  already  found  his  way  to 
the  soul  of  a  woman  by  some  other  way,  will  not  do  so 
through  the  channels  of  sex.  Men  who  have  in  them 
no  faculty  of  loving  are  therefore  apt  to  declare  that 
women  have  no  soul.  They  do  not  know  that  despite 
all  their  sexual  prowess  they  are  psychologically 
impotent. 


214        ^  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

The  masterful  lover  does  not  get  rid  of  the  disadvan- 
tages of  his  sexual  nature  any  better  in  his  capacity  as  an 
intellectual  man  than  on  the  lower  planes  of  feeling. 
The  further  he  becomes  removed  from  the  primitive 
condition  of  mind  in  which  sexual  matters  have  not 
begun  to  be  problems,  the  more  bitter  and  inimical  does 
his  attitude  toward  woman  become;  it  takes  on  a 
poisoned  point;  it  rankles  like  a  wound  in  his  soul.  He 
either  becomes  a  cynic — or,  much  less  frequently,  an 
ascetic;  and  the  mere  blend  of  cynical  effrontery  and 
ascetic  aversion  which  distinguishes  the  attitude  of  the 
modern  man  of  culture  towards  sexual  questions  tends 
to  reveal  the  kind  of  mental  attitude  which  generally 
prevails. 

The  conflict  between  self-respect  and  sexual  desire 
which  ceases  only  with  the  coming  of  love,  often  be- 
comes intensified  in  the  masterful  lover  in  proportion  to 
his  psychological  growth.  Regarding  woman  as  a  crea- 
ture unlike  himself,  and  far  inferior  to  himself,  he  is 
impelled  into  a  condition  of  hostility  to  her  by  that  very 
dependence  upon  her  which  sex  entails.  Only  when  he 
is  dominated  by  sex  does  he  venture  to  approach  her. 
And  she  attains  to  influence  over  him  only  by  accident; 
she  subjugates  him  like  some  strange  force  which  de- 
livers him  into  the  hands  of  a  being  whom  in  the  main 
he  disparages  and  abhors.  That  he  should  be  subject 
to  this  force  robs  him  of  his  self-respect,  and  brings 
about  a  painful  disenchantment  when  he  comes  back  to 
his  senses. 

Thus  it  happens  that  the  sexual  element,  which  m 
primitive  man  was  the  source  of  an  enhanced  self- 
esteem  and  a  conscious  superiority,  tears  him  in  two 
directions  by  reason  of  the  duality  of  his  nature — a 


On  the  Subject  of  the  "  Strong  Hand "    215 

duality  which  is  not  confined  to  his  own  life,  but  which 
confronts  him  everywhere  throughout  the  cosmos. 

There  are  certain  features  in  common  which  go  to  prove 
that  there  is  a  connection  between  the  ascetic-pessimistic 
outlook  on  life  and  the  non-erotic  sexuality  which  accom- 
panies a  high  order  of  intellectuality.  The  monstrous 
idea  of  all  mankind  being  in  a  condition  o£  ineradicable 
guilt  through  the  sinfulness  of  the  sexual  act,  and  of  the 
entire  life  of  the  earth  as  nothing  more  than  a  curse- 
laden  illusion,  would  seem  to  have  its  source  in  the 
conflict  which  tears  asunder  the  souls  of  this  order  of 
man.  The  great  despisers  of  the  animal  life  of  man,  the 
men  who  devised  a  transcendental  existence  in  another 
world,  were  most  of  them  at  the  same  time  despisers  and 
antagonists  of  women.  To  the  man  whose  conscience 
is  troubled  by  reason  of  his  sexual  desires,  a  world  which 
is  peopled  by  procreation  must  necessarily  be  accursed, 
and  woman,  the  eternal  object  of  this  evil  desire,  must 
be  the  immediate  cause  of  the  curse.  It  is  typical  of  this 
attitude  of  mind  that  masculine  fancy  should  represent 
woman  as  the  temptress  and  the  cause  of  the  fall  of 
man,  and  that  the  redemption  should  be  made  to  come 
from  an  "  immaculate  "  virgin,  a  woman  raised  above 
sex. 

What  is  symbolised  by  the  myth  of  Adam  and  Eve : 
the  representation  of  the  man's  soul  in  subjection  to  a 
woman,  the  seduction  of  this  soul  through  sexuality— 
that  active  role  being  attributed  to  the  woman  which 
in  real  normal  life  man  arrogates  to  himself;  this  piece 
of  symbolism  has  left  deep  marks  throughout  the  entire 
history  of  civilisation.  It  has  had  practical  consequences 
which  have  borne  heavily  upon  the  female  sex  as  being 
intellectually  the  weaker  half  of  mankind. 


2 1 6         A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

The  advanced  intellectualism  of  man  revenges  itself 
on  woman  for  man's  sufferings  through  sex.  This  com- 
founding  of  a  subjective  condition  for  the  object  which 
is  its  cause  does  no  credit  to  the  masculine  intellect.  But 
this  is  not  yet  the  worst. 

If  even  under  normal  circumstances  the  conceptions 
of  the  masterful  lover  bring  forth  a  pronounced  adverse 
attitude  towards  all  those  women  who  do  not  conform 
to  them  they  amount  to  a  positive  peril  when  they  grow 
to  such  an  intensity  as  to  border  on  the  field  of  patho- 
logical perversity. 

The  term  Sadism  is  applied  to  a  form  of  psycho- 
pathic sexual  aberration  which  consists  in  the  attaining 
of  emotion  and  gratification  through  cruel  acts.  An 
element  of  the  cruel  is  latent  always  in  the  masterful 
lover,  and  it  discloses  itself  in  the  craving  to  make  the 
woman  feel  the  weight  of  the  strong  hand,  and  to  possess 
her  as  a  creature  without  will,  passively  submitting  to 
the  sacrifice  of  herself.  When  this  element  grows  to  ex- 
tremes, or  becomes  connected  with  morbid  instincts,  it 
prepares  the  ground  for  Sadie  perversity.  The  ten- 
dency to  torment  the  object  which  is  sexually  accen- 
tuated in  the  consciousness  may  also  be  given  an 
intellectual  direction.  In  such  instances  the  gratification 
of  this  desire  takes  the  form  of  a  belittling  and  defama- 
tion of  the  female  sex — something  which  may  well 
justify  us  in  speaking  of  an  intellectual  Sadism.  Per- 
haps it  is  largely  a  masculine  desire  for  revenge  which 
furnishes  the  incentive  for  the  slanderous  literature  on 
the  subject  of  woman — the  work  of  men  who,  in  one 
way  or  another,  may  have  suffered  at  the  hands  of 
women.  In  other  cases  such  literary  creations  are  doubt- 
lessly engendered  by  some  morbid  instinct,  and,  in  an 


On  the  Subject  of  the  ''^Strong  Hand''''    217 

intellectual  sense,  may  be  considered  as  sadistic  acts. 
A  historical  document  of  intellectual  Sadism  which  must 
be  considered  as  of  the  utmost  importance  because  of  the 
wide  influence  it  exerted,  is  the  Malleus  maleficarum 
— that  terrible  book  which,  filled  with  a  superstitious 
rancour  and  a  fanatical  fury  against  the  female  sex,  gave 
rise  to  the  infamous  Witch  Trials.  We  cannot  afford 
to  ignore  this  work  when  considering  the  extremes  of 
that  masculine  hostility  which  arises  from  a  diseased 
sexuality,  for  whatever  extraneous  circumstances  may 
have  had  to  do  with  the  origin  of  the  "  Witch 
Hammer,"  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  subjective 
bias  of  the  two  Dominican  friars  who  compiled  it  will 
largely  explain  its  inspiration.  All  things  foul  and 
maniacal  which  had  been  conjured  up  since  the  earliest 
times  by  the  sexual  imagination,  all  that  had  ever  been 
invented  by  a  Satanic  joy  in  monstrous  sexual  orgies, 
Were  gathered  together  by  these  writers  in  order  to  lay 
them  as  a  burden  upon  the  back  of  womankind.  The 
history  of  the  Witch  Trials  is  a  terrifying  example  of 
the  effects  which,  under  certain  conditions,  such  insane 
ideas  are  able  to  produce.  "  The  universal  epidemic  of 
belief  in  devilish  sorcery  and  in  demon-paramours,  as 
well  as  the  fear  of  witches,  which  caused  the  Christianity 
of  Western  Europe  to  live  in  fear  and  trembling  for 
over  two  centuries,  was  caused  chiefly  by  the  Witch 
Hammer^  which  first  prepared  for  itself  the  millions 
of  sacrificial  victims  which  it  afterwards  destroyed. 
From  the  time  when  this  codex  for  the  persecution  of 
witches  was  first  set  up,  both  Church  and  judgment 
chamber  toiled  together  in  order  to  build  up  the  theory, 
Philosophy  and  Medicine  gave  their  faithful  aid,  and 
the  penal  laws  supplied  in  their  turn  the  material  that 


21 8         A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

went  to  conform  the  theory."    (Soldan's  History  of  the 
Witch  Trials.) 

When  we  consider  that  the  objective  signs  whose 
grotesque  explanation  gave  rise  to  the  witch-mania 
must,  in  all  likelihood,  have  been  caused  by  that  illness 
which  is  known  to-day  as  hysteria,  then,  indeed,  do  the 
Witch  Trials  assume  the  shape  of  a  shameful  monument 
to  the  inefficiency  of  the  masculine  intelligence  in  all 
things  wherein  sexuality  and  the  relationship  to  woman 
play  a  part.  Even  if  it  be  assumed  that  not  only 
hysterical,  insane,  and  absolutely  guiltless  women  were 
among  the  victims,  but  also  numbers  of  depraved, 
malicious,  and  crafty  women,  even  then  do  the  criminal 
annals  of  the  Witch  Trials  so  greatly  surpass  in  base- 
ness, malice,  and  superstition  all  the  possible  transgres- 
sions of  those  punished,  that  the  executive  officers  of 
the  law  appear  to  sink  immeasurably  below  the  level  of 
the  condemned. 

According  to  the  Malleus  male ji car um^  it  was  chiefly 
through  "  the  insatiable  lust  which  incites  to  intercourse 
with  demons  "  that  women  became  the  paramours  of 
fiends.  They  were  also  inclined  to  this  by  reason  of 
their  inferior  strength  of  faith,  for,  according  to  the 
etymology  of  the  Witch  Hammery  the  term  femina 
was  derived  from  fe  and  minor  \  A  considerable  part  of 
the  Witch  Hammer  consists  of  obscene  details  which 
served  to  embellish  this  idea  of  sexual  intercourse  with 
demons;  details  which  suggestive  questions  were  to 
wring  from  the  victim  upon  the  rack  and  which  plainly 
prove  that  not  only  a  priestly  and  political  lust  for 
power  lay  behind  this  work,  but  also  a  sexual  perversion 
which,  by  means  of  imaginary  abominations,  satisfied  a 


On  the  Subject  of  the  '■^Strong  Hand'''    219 

sadistic  and   destructive  impulse   directed   against  the 
female  sex. 

We  are  in  general  inclined  to  believe  that  all  things 
which  have  been  part  and  parcel  of  the  past  have  also 
been  done  away  with.  Modern  science  has  swept  ancient 
superstition  from  its  domain,  but  the  dark  depths  of  the 
human  soul  are  not  so  easily  swept  clean,  and  it  might 
well  be  that  the  old  hostile  mania  with  regard  to  woman 
still  pursues  its  evil  purpose  in  the  guise  of  milder  forms 
and  under  a  more  modern  mask.  Even  to-day  philo- 
sophy and  medicine  still  serve  faithfully  to  confer  a  halo 
of  objective  truth  upon  subjective  figments  of  the  imagi- 
nation. Is  it  not  a  so-called  man  of  science,  Lombroso, 
who  declares  that  "  even  the  normal  woman  is  a  half- 
criminaloid  being  "  .?  Is  it  not  a  matter  of  recent  history 
that  Weininger,  with  a  vast  display  of  philosophic 
thoroughness,  endeavoured  "  to  prove  in  the  most  com- 
prehensive manner  that  woman  is  soulless,  that  she 
possesses  no  ego  and  no  individuality,  no  personality  and 
no  freedom,  no  character  and  no  will  " — thus,  in  the 
twentieth  century,  answering  in  the  negative  the  very 
question  :  "  Has  Woman  a  Soul  ?  "  which  the  Christian 
misogynists  at  the  Council  of  Ma9on  were  forced  to 
answer  in  the  affirmative  more  than  a  thousand  years 
ago.^"  Mad  and  obscene  ideas,  as,  for  instance,  "indis- 
criminately, every  woman  feels  herself  throughout  her 
entire  body,  constantly  and  without  exception,  in  a  state 
of  coitus  "  (Weininger),  run  closely  parallel  to  the  ideas 
of  the  Witch  Hammer  with  respect  to  the  "  insatiable 
lust  of  woman,"  and  indicate  a  specific  psycho-sexual 
condition  as  their  common  source  of  origin,  unchanged 
by  the  passage  of  the  centuries. 


220         A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

This  source  has  its  ebb  and  flow  in  the  history  of 
society.  It  sinks  in  those  fruitful  eras  of  growth  in 
which  gifted  personalities  abound,  and  infuse  the  riches 
of  their  emotional  life  into  the  culture  of  the  times;  it 
rises  in  the  days  of  decline  when  the  base,  unbridled 
tendencies  of  human  nature  seize  the  reins  of  power  and 
all  manner  of  evils  threaten  the  healthy  life  of  the  in- 
stincts. Just  so  high  as  woman  stood  in  the  estimation 
of  man  during  the  times  of  the  Renaissance  and  the 
periods  which  led  up  to  it,  just  so  deeply  did  she  sink 
during  the  era  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War  when  the 
ideas  of  the  Witch  Hammer  had  become  common 
property,  ideas  which  the  contemporaneous  society  of 
this  book  had  passed  by  without  regarding. 

To  conclude,  let  us  return  to  the  starting-point  of 
these  observations  and  their  application.  We  repeat : 
a  man  in  his  relationship  to  other  men  may  be  as  un- 
prejudiced, as  just,  and  as  objective  as  possible,  but  if 
the  psycho-sexual  side  of  his  personality  happen  to  be 
of  a  hard,  coarse,  and  domineering  strain,  he  will  be 
incapable  of  thinking  justly  and  without  prejudice  of 
woman.  No  matter  how  lofty  a  thinker  he  may  be, 
here  he  finds  his  limitations.  Ah !  if  women  only  knew 
how  little  cause  they  have  for  smiling  at  this  limitation 
of  the  masculine  mind !  They  must  pay  dearly  for  this 
very  shortcoming.  Since  everywhere,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  England,  women  are  in  the  minority  as  com- 
pared with  men,  since  they  are  dependent  upon  them 
because  of  their  weaker  wills  and  feebler  intelligences, 
and,  in  addition  to  this,  subject  to  the  "  strong  hand  " 
because  of  their  erotic  inclinations,  the  subjectivity  of 


On  the  Subject  of  the  '■'Strong  Hand''    221 

man  in  sexual  matters  creates  a  tragic  fatality  which  rests 
upon  the  entire  female  sex. 

Nevertheless,  those  women  whose  natures  contain 
more  positive  elements  than  are  compatible  with  the 
demands  of  the  domineering  variety  of  eroticism  will 
have  to  determine  for  themselves  which  men  will  grant 
them  recognition  and  which  will  not.  They  may  not  in 
their  struggles  hope  to  convince  by  the  power  of  this  or 
that  particular  argument;  nevertheless,  it  is  possible  that 
Nature  herself  may  come  to  their  assistance.  Inasmuch 
as  sexuality  has,  during  the  evolution  of  civilisation  be- 
come sublimated  into  love,  why  should  a  biological 
change,  destined  to  influence  still  further  the  psycho- 
sexual  disposition  of  the  sexes,  be  regarded  as  a  mere 
Utopian  assumption }  It  is  not  beyond  the  limits  of 
possibility  that  the  conditions  of  life  imposed  by  a 
steadily  growing  civilisation  may  more  and  more  fre- 
quently affect  that  particular  type  of  masculinity  which 
finds  its  loftiest  expression  in  the  man  with  a  genius  for 
love.  These  conditions  of  life,  which  constantly  tend 
to  eliminate  the  external  differences  in  the  activities  of 
the  two  sexes,  operate  likewise  in  the  sense  of  a  con- 
stant approach  and  have  the  tendency  to  deprive  the 
domineering  instinct  of  at  least  its  social  support. 

The  increasing  intellectualisation  of  humanity  may 
likewise  in  course  of  time  have  the  effect  of  inducing  a 
greater  number  of  men  to  arrive  at  an  objective  decision 
between  the  women  of  their  erotic  tastes  and  those  who 
are  valued  without  regard  to  sexual  selectiveness. 
Among  the  domineering  type  of  amorists  there  have 
always  existed  those  individuals  whose  theoretical  views 
of  the  social  position  of  women  were  far  more  liberal 


222         A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

than  was  consistent  with  the  practice  of  their  private 
lives.  Is  it  not  possible  that  a  man  may  publicly  pro- 
claim himself  a  supporter  of  political  equality  for  women 
and  yet  in  his  domestic  relationship  to  his  own  wife 
allow  his  domineering  nature  to  come  to  the  fore  ?  It 
would  be  unjust  to  reproach  such  a  man  with  inconsist- 
ency; one  ought  rather  to  recognise  in  his  attitude  a 
symptom  of  a  remarkable  and  infrequent  elevation  above 
the  common  subjectivity,  an  admirable  independence  of 
the  intellect  from  the  bonds  of  an  elemental,  intrinsic 
quality. 

The  part  taken  by  women  in  modern  ideals  of  culture, 
in  the  liberation  of  the  individual  for  the  purpose  of  his 
unfettered  spiritual  development,  in  the  battle  for  the 
rights  of  a  free  personality,  will  not,  in  the  long  run, 
pass  without  leaving  its  definite  stamp  upon  the  organi- 
sation of  society.  Therefore  the  signs  of  a  reaction 
against  this  movement,  evidenced  by  a  growing  anta- 
gonism between  the  sexes  and  in  occasional  outbreaks 
of  the  masterly  masculine  type  against  the  "  unsexed  " 
or  the  "  brainy  "  woman,  may  be  assumed  to  have  the 
same  symptomatic  significance  as  the  intensification  of 
the  national  and  the  race  feeling  in  an  epoch  which 
endeavours  to  obliterate  these  differences  between  the 
races  and  the  nations  by  means  of  its  policies  or  its 
forms.  Both  phenomena  Indicate  that  an  opposition 
must  arise  in  the  consciousness  of  those  whose  emotional 
life  is  not  in  accordance  with  the  new  conditions. 

It  is  undeniable  that  the  unchangeable,  inherent 
nature  of  the  human  being  will  continue  to  be  the  barrier 
over  which  no  man  may  make  his  way;  nevertheless,  to 
a  certain  degree  all  things  are  capable  of  being  taught 


On  the  Subject  of  the  ^^  Strong  Hand''    223 

as  well  as  learned.  The  suggestive  Influence  of  great 
examples  signifies  an  element  of  culture  of  the  highest 
value.  With  imperishable  and  luminous  words  the 
genius  of  love  in  man  has  for  centuries  proclaimed  unto 
humanity  the  glad  tidings  that  a  relationship  is  possible 
between  the  sexes  far  different  from  any  of  which  the 
men  of  the  "  strong  hand  "  have  ever  permitted  them- 
selves to  dream. 


THE  SUBJECTIVE   FETICH   OF  SEX. 

Why  is  it  that  certain  women  encounter  so  much  good 
fortune  and  others  again  so  much  evil  ?  What  treachery 
of  fate  can  account  for  the  fact  that  most  women  have 
nothing  but  a  mere  one-sided  choice  ?  What  secret  law 
controls  the  experiences  from  which  man  builds  up  the 
sum  total  of  his  knowledge  of  woman  ? 

More  clearly  than  in  aught  else  are  here  manifested 
these  two  peculiarities  which  at  root  so  strongly  confine 
the  spiritual  life  of  humanity :  the  dependence  of  all 
thought  upon  inherent  idiosyncrasy,  and  the  tendency  to 
regard  the  results  of  individual  thought  as  objective 
truth.  If  the  truth  which  is  arrived  at  by  any  distinct 
and  separate  intelligence  is  always  conditioned  by  the 
individualism  of  type,  must  it  not  also  be  true  that  the 
hidden  relationship  between  so-called  objective  thinking 
and  the  spiritual-corporeal  constitution  of  man  is  most 
directly  operative  where  the  question  is  not  one  of 
principles  of  abstract  knowledge,  but  of  a  concrete 
phenomenon  so  intimately  and  personally  related  to  man 


as  IS  *'  woman 


5>? 


The  intellectual  process  which  takes  place  in  arriving 
at  a  generalisation,  or  in  combining  separate  data  of 
experience  into  one  general  conclusion,  is  something 
which  cannot  be  severed  from  the  essence  of  him  who 


The  Subjective  Fetich  of  Sex  225 

experiences  it — otherwise  identical  facts  would  never  be 
so  variously  presented  by  different  persons. 

But  even  those  persons  who  by  means  of  an  a  priori 
method  utter  their  opinions  as  to  the  "  true  nature  of 
woman,"  or  base  "  woman's  being  "  upon  "  principles  of 
pure  reason,"  or  even  adhere  to  the  "  platonic  idea  of 
woman,"  must  ask  themselves  this  question:  what  are 
the  original  conditions  which  give  rise  to  ideas  such  as 
these  in  an  individual  intelligence? — and  also  to  what 
extent  their  own  subjectivity  has  helped  to  create  these 
general  assumptions. 

It  was  the  hermit  of  Sils  Maria,  the  man  of  "  exceed- 
ing honesty,"  who  pointed  out  that  in  matters  such  as 
these  no  man  is  able  to  know  more  than  that  which  is 
already  determined  for  him,  that  which  is  confirmed  in 
the  very  depths  of  his  spiritual  constitution. 

"  At  the  very  roots  of  our  being,  deep  '  down  below,' 
there  lies  something  unteachable,  the  granite  of  a  spiritual 
destiny,  of  predetermined  judgments  and  answers.  .  .  . 
For  example,  with  regard  to  man  and  woman  a  thinker 
cannot  unlearn,  but  merely  out-learn — he  can  only  dis- 
cover to  the  very  end  that  which  is  *  established  '  in  him. 
At  times  we  are  enabled  to  light  upon  certain  solutions 
of  problems  which  fortify  our  beliefs — perhaps  thence- 
forward we  call  them  our  *  convictions.'  Later,  we 
behold  in  them  mere  footprints  to  a  knowledge  of  self, 
guide-posts  to  the  problem  of  ourselves — or,  more 
correctly,  to  that  great  folly  which  is  but  another  name 
for  ourselves — to  our  spiritual  destiny,  to  the  unteach- 
able elements  far  '  down  below.'  "  {Beyond  Good  and 
Evil) 

With  these  remarks  Nietzsche  prefaces  those  one- 
sided and  unjust  verdicts  which  he  pronounced  upon 

Q 


226         A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

the  female  representatives  of  the  modern  women's  move- 
ment, and  In  this  wise  lays  special  emphasis  upon  the 
fact  that  it  is  only  his  own  subjective  taste  which  is  here 
expressed.  "  In  consideration  of  this  act  of  courtesy 
which  I  have  just  committed,  so  to  speak,  at  my  own 
expense,  I  trust  that  I  may  be  permitted  the  sooner  to 
express  certain  truths  with  regard  to  *  woman  as  woman  ' 
— provided  that  one  is  now  aware  in  advance  how  very 
much  these  happen  to  be  only — my  own  truths." 

But,  long  before  Nietzsche,  Goethe  spoke  these 
thoughtful  words  to  Eckermann :  "  Women  are  silver 
shells  into  which  we  lay  golden  apples.  My  ideas  of 
woman  are  not  obtained  from  the  experiences  of  reality, 
but  they  are  inborn  in  me  or  have  developed  in  me, 
Heaven  knows  how." 

In  Grillparzer  we  find  the  dictum  :  "  A  woman — what 
might  it  be.'*  ...  A  something  which  is  never  any- 
thing, never  nothing,  just  as  I  happen  to  imagine  it — 
I — I  alone."    {Fraternal  Strife  in  Hahshurg.) 

Let  us,  therefore,  state  that  the  position  which  the 
individual  man,  both  in  theory  and  practice,  assumes 
with  regard  to  woman  is  determined  only  to  a  slight 
extent  by  experience;  further,  that  the  experiences  which 
each  man  undergoes  are  already  predetermined  by  an 
original  bias  in  his  own  soul.  Experiences  from  without 
can  no  more  alter  this  original  bias  than  they  could 
alter  the  idiosyncrasies  of  his  own  type.  It  is  not 
probable  that  a  man,  irrespective  of  the  various  experi- 
ences he  may  undergo,  will  alter  his  opinions  of  the  sex, 
save  when  overtaken  by  a  subversion  of  the  entire 
psychical  self  such  as  occurs  occasionally  in  old  age  or 
in  sickness.  The  converted  woman-hater  is,  to  be  sure, 
a  rather  common  character  in  romantic  literature,  but  in 


The  Subjective  Fetich  of  Sex  227 

real  life  the  conversion  is  almost  as  rare  as  that  funda- 
mental religious  one  which  Christian  faith  always  attri- 
butes to  an  act  of  divine  grace.  It  is  impossible  to  call 
those  men  woman-haters  who  think  slightingly  of  women 
merely  because  their  subjective  conception  of  the  sex 
is  of  so  lofty  a  nature  that  the  great  majority  of  women 
can  by  no  means  attain  to  it — thus  forcing  such  men 
to  seek  long  in  vain  for  the  realisation  of  their  ideals. 

Every  individuality  reacts  to  the  distinct  charms  of 
another.  This  fact,  embodied  in  the  term  "  subjective 
taste,"  is  almost  a  commonplace.  Ordinary  persons 
whose  consciousness  with  regard  to  their  sexuality  does 
not  rise  far  above  the  torpor  of  the  instinctive  life, 
remain  dull  and  apathetic  to  all  those  ideas  concerning 
the  other  sex  which  are  based  upon  subjective  taste. 
They  seize  upon  the  conventional,  that  is  to  say,  the 
opinion  created  by  the  majority,  and  very  frequently 
they  adhere  to  it  even  when  it  no  longer  coincides  with 
the  experience  of  their  lives,  only  because  they  are  not 
sufficiently  awake  to  be  acted  upon  by  the  reflexes  of 
their  own  personal  feelings.  But  wherever  imagination 
or  passion  or  a  highly  developed  capacity  for  abstract 
thought  manifests  itself  in  an  individuality — as  with 
persons  who  are  intellectually  creative — the  field  of  con- 
sciousness is  filled  with  clearer  and  more  positive  forms. 

That  complexity  of  individual  traits  which  constitutes 
our  own  personality,  which  differentiates  it  from  all 
others,  and  which  is  mirrored  in  our  consciousness  as 
the  embodiment  of  our  own  ego — also,  to  a  certain 
extent,  creates  as  a  by-product  a  more  or  less  sharply- 
defined  image  which  we  project  into  the  outer  world 
and  endeavour  to  find  embodied  in  the  individuals  of 
the  other  sex.    This  is  true  equally  of  the  male  as  of  the 

Q   2 


228         A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

female  sex.  But  inasmuch  as  the  masculine  conscious- 
ness is  the  more  communicative  and  expansive  and  gives 
forth  more  of  its  contents  in  the  shape  of  creative 
thought,  this  proceeding  becomes  more  noticeable  among 
men — the  more  so  as  the  consequences  arising  therefrom 
are  of  greater  general  significance  in  view  of  the  authori- 
tative rank  of  the  male  sex. 

The  facts  of  experience  with  regard  to  subjective 
conceptions  of  "  woman  "  furnish  only  the  materials  for 
building,  the  plan  of  the  building  is  fixed  by  individu- 
ality. All  the  facts  of  experience  are  interpreted  accord- 
ing to  this  plan — all  that  is  observed  is  in  this  manner 
and  in  conformity  with  a  definite  law,  conceived  as 
typical.  Each  seizes  upon  that  which  confirms  his  par- 
ticular type  and  willingly  enshrines  it  in  his  remem- 
brance, but  impressions  which  limit  or  possibly  destroy 
this  type  are  considered  as  disturbing,  restrictive  or  dis- 
agreeable. Frequently  they  are  not  even  perceived,  or 
when  they  are  perceived,  vanish  swiftly  from  the 
memory. 

Nothing  is  so  significant  as  the  air  of  infallible  cer- 
tainty which  men  assume  in  their  generalisations  about 
"  woman,"  even  those  men  who,  in  their  attitudes  to 
all  other  phenomena  in  the  realm  of  experience,  preserve 
the  most  careful  and  conscientious  reticence  of  thought. 
This  certainly  proves  that  they  confuse  the  empirical 
woman  with  the  immanent  woman  in  the  crudest 
manner.  The  empirical  woman,  the  intrinsic  individual 
being  of  female  kind,  is  a  manifold  phenomenon  like 
man  himself,  and  in  her  multifariousness  she  is  as  in- 
commensurable as  he.  The  immanent  woman  is,  on  the 
contrary,  a  creature  of  the  imagination,  is  known  to  every 
man  and  is  as  familiar  to  him  as  his  own  ego — since  it 


The  Subjective  Fetich  of  Sex  229 

is  from  this  very  ego  that  it  has  been  produced  and  with 
which  it  has  become  incorporated. 

All  general  judgments  which  a  man  may  pronounce 
upon  woman  must  first  be  qualified  by  a  certain  signi- 
ficance, manifesting  itself  as  a  symptom  of  his  own 
psycho-sexual  predisposition.  Such  judgments  have 
more  of  a  biographical  than  a  normalising  value.  That 
which  he  hopes  for  or  fears  in  woman,  or  desires  and 
presupposes,  his  opinion  as  to  what  woman  "  should  " 
be,  furnish  a  rather  reliable  estimate  of  his  own  nature. 

It  is  the  need  for  completion  which  operates  as  the 
highest  law  in  the  psychical  relation  of  the  sexes.  In 
accordance  with  this  need  the  particular  fetich  which  the 
imagination  of  every  person  conjures  up  with  regard  to 
the  other  sex  is  marked  by  those  very  features  which 
form  a  complement,  and  in  some  respects  a  reversal, 
of  his  own  nature :  it  is  something  which  arises  in  the 
soul  like  a  complementary  colour  in  the  vision. 

Richard  Wagner,  whose  theoretical  writings  have  con- 
tributed so  greatly  to  the  psychological  studies  of  poets 
and  musicians,  gives  us  a  remarkable  glimpse  into  the 
origin  of  a  subjective  sex-fetich  in  A  Communication 
to  my  Friends^  wherein  he  describes  his  poem  of 
Lohengrin  as  a  symbolisation  of  an  inner  experience. 
The  deeper  meaning  of  this  poem  he  declares  to  be  the 
embodying  of  his  own  emotions  in  the  figure  of  Lohen- 
grin— as  a  yearning  from  the  lonely  heights  of  pure 
art  for  the  lower  levels  of  common  human  life.  From 
this  height  his  longing  vision  beholds — woman. 
"  From  the  very  beginning  I  saw  in  Elsa  that  antithesis 
to  Lohengrin  which  I  so  longed  for — naturally  not  an 
absolute  and  remote  antithesis  to  his  own  being,  but 
rather  the  other  part  of  it,  that  opposite  which  is  really 


230         A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

contained  in  himself  and  which  of  necessity  only  com- 
prises the  completion  of  his  own  peculiar  masculine 
nature.  Elsa  is  the  unconscious,  indeterminate  nature  in 
which  the  conscious,  positive  nature  of  Lohengrin 
endeavours  to  find  salvation." 

How  characteristic  of  the  individuality  of  Richard 
Wagner,  whose  chief  peril  as  an  artist  lay  in  doctrinal 
knowledge,  is  the  fact  that  he  believed  that  in  Elsa's 
unconsciousness  and  indeterminateness  he  had  surely 
discovered  the  "essentially  feminine"!  The  prepon- 
derance of  intellectual  activity  which  constitutes  such  a 
disturbing,  burdensome  and  obstructive  element  for  all 
artistically  productive  persons  is  the  thing  from  which 
he  fancies  he  would  be  "  saved."  But  since  the  opera- 
tion of  an  influence  so  deep-going  as  this — assuming 
that  it  is  even  thinkable — can  be  brought  about  only  by 
means  of  a  psycho-sexual  interfusion,  he  projects  the 
thing  he  yearned  for  in  the  form  of  a  woman — of  woman 
in  the  concept  of  the  "  essentially  feminine."  Never- 
theless, he  by  no  means  presumed  to  find  the  embodi- 
ment of  this  essential  woman  in  individuals  among 
women,  or  even  to  regard  it  as  a  norm,  which  would 
enable  one  in  real  life  to  distinguish  the  "  true  "  from 
the  "  spurious  "  women. 

On  this  point  his  sensibilities  proved  to  be  far  deeper 
and  richer  or,  one  might  say,  juster,  than  those  of 
Nietzsche,  his  later  opponent.  That  Nietzsche's  fetich 
also  concealed  a  natural  antithesis  and  a  need  for 
"  salvation,"  is  confirmed  by  the  fact  that  even  he,  whose 
destiny  was  determined  by  an  urging  toward  an  un- 
qualified truthfulness  and  honesty  of  thought,  gave  forth 
this  formula  :  "  Originally  nothing  is  more  alien,  more 
antagonistic  and  more  hostile  to  woman  than  truth — 


The  Subjective  Fetich  of  Sex  2  3 1 

her  great  art  consists  of  falsehood,  her  loftiest  concerns 
are  mere  appearance  and  beauty.  Let  us  acknowledge 
it — we  men  :  we  honour  and  love  precisely  this  very  art 
and  instinct  of  woman— we  who  endure  much,  and  love 
to  ally  ourselves  for  our  solace  with  those  beings  under 
whose  hands,  glances  and  tender  follies  our  own  earnest- 
ness, heaviness  and  profundity  appear  almost  like 
another  form  of  '  folly.'  " 

This  glorification  of  feminine  falsity  and  superficiality 
is  a  most  remarkable  and  unusual  example  of  sex- 
idolatry.  Let  us  contrast  with  it  the  wrath  and 
abhorrence  with  which  suspicious  and  dishonest  authors 
— especially  those  who  themselves  suffer  from  these 
qualities  and  would  rise  above  them — speak  of  these 
very  same  feminine  peculiarities  and  how  highly  they 
praise  the  innocence  and  deep  sensibility  of  the  "  true  " 
woman.  The  same  attitude  is  adopted  by  the  intem- 
perate, the  unbridled  and  depraved  among  men — who 
make  a  habit  of  regarding  woman  as  the  goddess  of  a 
fine  moderation,  of  propriety  and  purity. 

The  dominance  which  is  exerted  over  the  soul  of  an 
individual  by  an  imaginative  subjective  sex-fetich  fre- 
quently attains  the  power  of  an  obsession;  but  even  when 
it  does  not  assume  this  fanatical  quality,  it  nevertheless 
remains  one  of  the  most  potent  and  unconquerable  of 
illusions.  For  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  it  stands  in 
close  relationship  with  the  most  important  contingency 
which,  with  the  one  exception  of  self-preservation, 
occurs  in  human  life — that  of  sexual  selection.  It  is  in 
the  love-relationship  that  the  subjective  sex-fetich 
attains  to  its  greatest  significance;  there,  too,  one  may 
most  easily  observe  the  blindness  which  it  occasions. 

Nothing   else   than  this  dominance  in   love   of   the 


232         A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

immanent  woman  is  meant  by  Maeterlinck  when  he 
says :  "  Vainly  we  may  elect  to  fix  our  choice  on  this 
hand  or  the  other  hand,  upon  the  heights  or  within  the 
depths;  it  is  in  vain  that  we  strive  to  emerge  from  that 
magic  circle  which  we  feel  is  drawn  about  all  our  views 
of  life,  to  do  violence  to  our  instincts,  or  thwart  our 
stars  by  attempting  to  achieve  an  independent  choice; 
we  shall  never  fail  to  select  the  woman  who  has  de- 
scended upon  us  from  some  invisible  sphere.  And 
even  should  we  kiss  a  thousand  and  three  women,  like 
Don  Juan,  we  shall  (at  last)  come  to  know  that  it  is 
always  the  same  woman  who  stands  before  us,  the  good 
or  the  evil,  the  tender  or  the  cruel,  the  loving  or  the 
faithless." 

In  his  romance,  The  Triumph  of  Death,  d'Annunzio 
causes  this  thought  to  pass  through  the  mind  of  his 
hero :  "  She  is — as  she  appears  to  me  every  moment  to 
be — nothing  more  than  the  constant  operation  of  my 
inner  creative  powers.  Outside  of  myself  she  does  not 
exist.  ..." 

Prybiszeffski,  in  his  sultry,  ecstatic  style,  speaks 
thus :  "  Thou  wast  in  me  ere  I  saw  thee — thou  didst 
lie  chastely  in  my  brain,  as  a  prototype  of  immaculate 
purity,  as  an  idea  purely  conceived,  .  .  .  then  in  an 
instant  thou  hadst  spun  the  thread  between  my  creative 
brain  and  the  slumbering,  brooding,  animal  soul  of  sex, 
.  .  .  and  thou,  sex-animal,  didst  merge  with  the  original 
image  of  my  mind  and  grewest  into  a  mighty  whole." 
(Figils.) 

Here  we  encounter  a  note  that  portends  evil,  for 
surely  no  good  is  to  be  expected  when  a  "  sex-animal " 
and  a  "  purely-conceived  idea  "  merge  into  one. 

The  subjective  figment  of  the  imagination  determines 


The  Subjective  Fetich  of  Sex  233 

the  relationship  between  the  individual  man  and  the 
woman  of  his  choice — to  the  happiness  of  those  con- 
cerned when  the  real  character  of  the  woman  approaches 
the  fetich — but  as  a  misfortune  when  the  fetich  unites 
itself  to  the  wrong  person.  Among  the  errors  which  lie 
at  the  root  of  unfortunate  love  affairs,  the  influence  of 
this  subjective  image  of  the  phantasy  occupies  a  con- 
siderable place.  The  battle  between  the  immanent  and 
the  empirical  woman  is  frequently  visible  in  all  its 
violence  in  those  passionate  reproaches  and  accusations, 
in  the  despairing  oscillations  between  love  and  hate, 
which,  in  such  cases,  accompany  the  process  of  dis- 
solution. 

Strindberg,  with  great  artistic  honesty,  but  with  a 
repellent  pathological  note,  has  pictured  the  extremes 
of  this  battle  in  his  Confessions  of  a  Fool.  Out  of 
the  confusion,  the  inconsequence  and  moodiness  of 
passion,  which  make  their  appeal  to  the  judgment  of  the 
"  enlightened  reader,"  now  by  means  of  outbursts  of 
fury,  now  by  a  half-fainting  perplexity,  there  emerges 
first  the  fetich  and  then  the  real  woman,  according  to 
the  circumstances  in  which  the  author  happens  to  be 
living.  When  he  is  seated  for  some  time  at  the  side  of 
his  beloved,  the  real  person  occludes  the  fetich  and  fills 
him  with  a  jealous  restlessness;  when  he  leaves  her,  the 
phantasm  of  the  pale,  young  woman,  the  mirrored 
image  of  the  virgin  mother  "  arises  before  him  and  the 
"  picture  of  the  unbridled  comedienne  "  is  erased  from 
his  memory.  One  might  well  imagine  that  this  woman, 
under  the  suggestive  influence  of  her  own  fetich,  shows 
herself  quite  other  than  she  really  is,  but  as  soon  as  she 
forgets  her  role  she  becomes  to  him  an  object  of  con- 
tempt and  loathing.     He  makes  absolutely  no  attempt 


234         ^  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

to  arrive  at  any  clear  and  sufficient  understanding  of  her 
real  nature,  even  the  very  thought  that  she  may  be 
capable  of  sexual  impulses  drives  him  beyond  reason  : 
"  Is  it  possible  that  this  cold  and  lustful  Madonna  may 
belong  to  the  class  of  born  prostitutes?  "  There  is  no 
indignity  with  which  he  does  not  confront  her  during 
their  union :  he  foams  against  her  with  treacherous 
malice,  compares  her  to  the  spider  who  devours  her 
own  mate — and  no  sooner  is  he  separated  from  her  than 
the  same  game  repeats  itself :  "  The  Madonna  of  my 
first  dream  of  love  rises  before  me,  and  this  works  upon 
me  to  such  an  extent  that  on  meeting  an  old  comrade  of 
my  journalistic  days  I  confess  that  I  have  become 
humbler  and  purer  through  the  influence  of  a  noble 
woman." 

The  endless  variety  of  feminine  characteristics  which, 
as  judgments  upon  woman,  are  revealed  to  us  in  the 
literature  of  the  world,  also  testify  to  the  multiplicity  of 
the  fetiches  which  are  conjured  up  by  the  masculine 
imagination.  It  is  possible  to  classify  these  fetiches  by 
groups  according  to  the  relation  of  rank;  that  is  to  say, 
the  relation  in  which  the  man  as  a  person  stands  to  the 
woman  as  a  person.  Since  the  male  sex  in  accordance 
with  the  external  order  of  things  is  the  foremost  as  well 
as  the  governing  sex,  it  follows  that  the  sexual  relation 
of  rank  as  reflected  in  the  mind  of  the  individual  man 
assumes  a  special  and  weighty  significance.  In  con- 
formity with  this  external  order  of  things,  man  must 
necessarily  assign  to  woman  a  place  beneath  his  own. 
The  fetich  of  the  bondwoman  reigns  in  this  order  of 
things.  In  spite  of  this  the  fetich  of  a  "  higher  being," 
or  of  a  mistress  which  man  sets  above  him,  has  played 
no  inconsiderable  part  in  the  history  of  civilisation — as 


The  Subjective  Fetich  of  Sex  235 

well  as  the  fetich  which  man  sets  at  his  side — that  of  the 
helpmate.  It  is  only  the  main  outlines  of  the  various 
relationships  which  are  shown  forth  in  these  three 
figures,  but  they  are  drawn  from  these  three  groups — 
into  which  men  are  arranged  according  to  their  sexual 
natures,  and  which  may  be  described  as  the  masterful, 
the  chivalrous,  and  the  comrade-like. 

Since  the  rank  and  worth  of  separate  male  and  female 
individuals  are  purely  relative,  it  would  be  possible  for 
every  man,  in  so  far  as  he  proceeds  from  an  objective 
point  of  view,  to  discover  in  the  world  of  reality  such 
women  as  stand  above  him,  and  such  as  stand  beside  or 
beneath  him.  It  would,  therefore,  seem  that  the 
ordinary  man  of  no  importance  would  be  the  first  to  set 
woman  above  him,  and  that  only  such  men  as  have 
reached  the  loftiest  summits  of  human  perfection,  which 
hitherto  no  woman  has  attained,  would  have  the  right 
to  regard  woman  as  beneath  them.  But  the  very  oppo- 
site is  the  case.  The  lowest  and  most  miserable  fellows 
usually  imagine  themselves  superior  to  woman,  and 
manifest  their  tyrannous  self-esteem  in  brutal  or  mali- 
cious acts;  while,  on  the  contrary,  many  of  the  noblest 
and  most  distinguished  men  think  of  woman  as  a 
spiritual  mistress  or  a  consort,  thereby  creating  a  dream- 
figure  which  transcends  reality. 

According  to  the  depth  and  richness  with  which  the 
amorous  side  of  a  person's  nature  is  developed,  even  so 
rich  and  individualised  will  be  the  figment  of  the 
imagination  which  the  other  sex  will  inspire  in  that 
person.  A  needy,  inflexible,  one-sided  eroticism  is  in- 
capable of  projecting  a  complete  or  harmonious  image 
of  woman ;  it  will  at  best  be  equipped  with  very  general, 
very  superficial  qualities  of  sex;  and,  at  the  worst,  with 


236         A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

mean  or  negative  qualities,  without  substance — an 
empty  sheet  on  which  man  must  first  inscribe  his  will. 

The  image  of  the  bondwoman,  the  subjective  sex- 
fetich  of  the  domineering  lover,  is  the  oldest,  the  most 
widespread,  and  the  most  vulgar,  and  determines  the 
position  which  the  female  sex  occupies,  if  not  in  the 
social  scheme,  then  at  least  before  the  law. 

When  the  bondwoman  happens  to  encounter  her  com- 
plete antithesis  in  the  idea  of  the  mistress,  the  idol  of 
the  knightly  type  of  eroticism,  then,  remarkable  as  this 
inversion  may  appear,  there  nevertheless  occurs  no 
essential  change  in  the  degree  of  strangeness  that  exists 
between  the  sexes.  The  idea  of  womanly  weakness 
which  sways  the  mind  of  the  domineering  man,  is  the 
very  same  as  that  which  determines  the  idol  of  the 
chivalrous  man,  though  in  the  latter  it  is  combined  with 
the  idea  of  the  moral  ascendancy  of  the  woman,  and 
necessitates  that  the  lord  and  master  become  the  servant 
and  the  protector  who  takes  pleasure  in  his  voluntary 
subordination  so  long  as  he  may  feel  himself  a  pro- 
tecting power. 

Yet  the  conception  of  a  vast  and  insurmountable  sex- 
difference  lies  deep  at  the  very  heart  of  the  knightly 
ideal;  it  is,  like  the  fetich  of  the  masterful  man,  rooted 
in  a  need  for  an  antithesis;  it  differs  only  in  the  direction 
in  which  it  operates.  This  ideal  cannot  be  maintained 
without  preserving  a  certain  remoteness  between  the 
holder  of  it  and  the  person  upon  whom  it  is  centred — 
for  which  reason  Nietzsche  declares,  "  The  magic  and 
the  mightiest  power  of  women  is  ...  a  power  in  the 
distance,  an  actio  in  distans;  but  for  this  one  must,  first 
and  foremost,  have — distance." 


The  Subjective  Fetich  of  Sex  237 

The  most  celebrated  figures  which  the  chivakous 
fetich  has  ever  created — Dante's  Beatrice  and  Petrarch's 
Laura — do  not  behe  this  idea  of  distance;  and  through 
this  they  give  inspiration  to  that  especial  domain  of  the 
knightly  idolatry — poetry,  which  of  all  things  is  least 
adapted  to  come  into  touch  with  reality — whereas,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  domineering  amorist  who,  devoid  of 
all  romance,  wins  his  ideas  from  the  clay  of  common, 
everyday  life,  has  shaped  woman  to  suit  his  own  notion 
of  domestic  usefulness. 

Perhaps  the  only  idol  or  ideal  which  in  itself  contains 
a  real  basis  for  a  true  understanding,  a  real  approach 
between  man  and  woman,  is  the  ideal  of  the  mate,  the 
subjective  idea  that  woman  stands  neither  above  nor 
below  man,  but  beside  him  in  human  communities 
wherein  the  sexual  differentiation  has  as  little  to  do  with 
intellectual  as  with  physical  superiority.  This  ideal  is 
frequently  attacked,  especially  by  the  defenders  of  the 
masterful  type  of  amorist,  as  a  feeble  invention  of 
modern  feminine  thought,  or  even  as  a  product  of 
deterioration,  since  it  exists  only  since  the  days  of  the 
French  Revolution.  It  is  in  reality  of  a  far  more  ancient 
origin  than  this;  some  of  the  most  glorious  spirits  of 
antiquity,  such  as  Plato  and  Plutarch,  were  familiar 
with  it,  and  if  we  may  read  a  symptomatic  meaning  into 
the  story  of  Mary  and  Martha,  then  Jesus  has  likewise, 
on  behalf  of  women,  preferred  the  desire  for  a  spiritual 
communality  to  the  desire  for  serving  : 

"  Mary  has  chosen  the  good  part;  which  shall  not  be 
taken  away  from  her." 

These  three  types  do  not  in  reality  emerge  so  sharply 
separated  nor  so  plainly  defined,  nor  do  they  in  any 


238         A  Survey  of  the  JVomati  Problem 

way  exhaust  the  multiplicity  of  subjective  fetiches.  Ria 
Claassen,  premissing  her  judgments  upon  certain  other 
signs,  has  described  three  other  types  in  one  of  the  most 
brilliant  and — let  it  be  remarked  for  the  benefit  of  all 
who  deny  originality  to  the  female  brain — most  distinc- 
tive contributions  to  sexual  psychology  [Man^s  Phantom 
of  Woman. — Zurich  Discussions^  IV.).  These  types, 
according  to  her,  remain  eternally  the  same  and  repeat 

themselves  in  all  ages the  phantom  of  the  woman 

of  the  Fall;  the  phantom  of  the  Virgin  Mother,  and 
"  that  most  abhorrent  that  was  ever  bred  in  a  human 
brain  " — that  of  the  merely  sexual  woman — "  the  most 
convenient  object  for  sultanic  lust." 

The  desire  for  revenge,  the  sentimental  effusiveness, 
and  the  crass  meanness  which  at  times  accompany  the 
sexual  impulse  of  the  man,  are  brilliantly  depicted  in 
these  three  forms — but  all  the  friendly,  tender,  comrade- 
like phases,  which  certainly  we  cannot  ignore  as  forming 
part  of  the  relations  of  the  sexes,  are  ignored  by  Ria 
Claassen.  For  this  reason  her  conception  of  the  sex- 
relation  finds  its  highest  expression  in  this  sombre 
prognosis:  "The  Schopenhauerian-Strindbergian  phan- 
tom, above  all,  the  phantom  of  the  woman  of  the  Fall, 
is  at  the  same  time  the  oldest  and  the  most  modern 
phantom,  the  phantom  of  the  future.  It  is  not  the 
greatest  possible  intimacy  between  the  sexes  which  is  to 
furnish  the  solution  of  future  problems,  but  the  greatest 
possible  separateness,  at  least  in  the  more  highly 
developed  specimens." 

It  is  true  that  we  find  plenty  of  indications  in  modern 
literature  which  force  us  to  conclude  that  the  fantastic 
conceptions  of  woman  as  held  by  the  domineering  type 


The  Subjective  Fetich  of  Sex  239 

of  man  have  lost  nothing  of  the  ancient  sharpness  of  the 
sex-antithesis. 

But  is  not  the  woman-phantom  bred  from  the  brain 
of  a  John  Stuart  Mill,  a  Bebel,  Bjornsen,  or  a  Walt 
Whitman,  equal  in  social  significance  to  that  of  Schopen- 
hauer and  Strindberg?  And  is  Goethe,  the  most  con- 
summate representative  of  amorous  genius,  no  longer 
to  be  a  prototype  for  coming  generations?  It  is  no 
doubt  due  to  a  misunderstanding — an  intentional  mis- 
understanding by  means  of  which  German  Philistinism 
seized  upon  Goethe  as  its  own  authority !— that  the 
words,  "  Betimes  let  woman  learn  to  serve,"  meant  by 
him  in  a  general  sense,  should  be  interpreted  as  an  ex- 
pression of  Goethe's  own  attitude  towards  the  feminine 
sex,  notwithstanding  the  fact  that  he  put  these  words 
into  the  mouth  of  an  heroic  girl  as  an  expression  of  her 
own  voluntary  self-resignation — that  very  Dorothea 
whom  Humboldt  accused  of  being  quite  unfeminine 
because  in  a  moment  of  danger  she  at  once  seized 
weapons — like  a  man.  Goethe's  subjective  idol  is 
plainly  revealed  in  his  view  that  when  woman  "  is  able 
through  sufficient  energy  to  elevate  her  other  advan- 
tages she  becomes  a  being  than  which  one  could  imagine 
none  more  perfect.  ,  .  .  The  saying  :  *  He  shall  be  thy 
master'  is  the  formula  of  a  barbarous  age  long  since 
past :  men  cannot  reach  the  highest  degree  of  cultiva- 
tion without  conceding  the  same  rights  to  women." 
His  works  are  ample  evidence  that  he  understood  how 
to  honour  "  the  heroic  greatness  of  woman  with  a  true 
manliness." 

Must  we  assume,  then,  that  "woman  "  is,  after  all, 
only  a  product  of  the  masculine  brain,  an  eternal  illu- 


240         A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

sion,  a  phantom  capable  of  taking  all  forms  without  ever 
possessing  a  single  one  ? 

Woman  as  an  abstraction,  as  a  figment  of  thought, 
exists  only  in  the  brain  of  the  thinker,  and  is  absolutely 
dependent  upon  this — as  the  nature  of  thought  de- 
mands, but  woman  as  an  individual  exists  for  herself, 
and  is  as  noble  or  as  vile,  as  gifted  or  as  stupid,  as  weak 
or  as  strong,  as  good  or  as  wicked,  as  like  to  man  or  as 
unlike  him;  in  short,  as  diversified  as  is  made  necessary 
by  the  very  nature  of  the  human  species.  How  astonish- 
ing that  this  simple  observation,  confirmed  a  thousand- 
fold by  life  and  the  representation  of  life,  should  only 
in  the  rarest  cases  be  able  to  assert  itself  against  the 
power  of  the  subjective  fetich ! 

Nothing  is  of  greater  importance  to  women  than  to 
battle  against  the  abstractions  into  which  they  are  con- 
stantly being  converted  by  masculine  thought.  If  they 
wish  to  achieve  power  as  real  persons  in  the  world  they 
must  battle  against  woman  as  a  fetich.  That  means  that 
they  must  emerge  from  their  passivity  and  break  the 
silence  that  surrounds  them,  even  at  the  peril  of  at  first 
producing  little  that  is  edifying.  There  are  many  men 
iwho  regard  it  as  the  greatest  shamelessness  or  the 
greatest  folly  of  modern  woman  that  by  their  confessions 
and  revelations,  they  should  tear  the  veil  which  masculine 
phantasy  has  woven  about  them.  Silence  may  have  its 
advantages,  but  all  the  advantages  in  the  world  will  not 
suffice  to  compensate  a  being  who  has  begun  to  feel 
herself  as  a  personality — for  being  taken  for  something 
other  than  she  really  is. 

And  even  if  it  is  a  question  of  natural  predisposition 
and  not  of  wider  knowledge,  whether  man  and  woman 


The  Subjective  Fetich  of  Sex  241 

are  to  regard  each  other  as  free  companions  or  as  lord 
and  subject,  then  it  should  at  least  become  a  question 
of  wider  knowledge  to  fathom  the  power  of  the  subjec- 
tive fetich  in  the  relationships  of  man  and  woman,  and 
to  acknowledge  that  it  is  the  subjectivity  which  here 
remains  the  unconquerable  factor. 


VISTAS    OF    INDIVIDUALITY 

In  the  paintings  of  the  Sistine  Chapel,  those  wonder- 
ful revelations  of  the  workings  of  a  great  artist's  soul, 
the  creation  of  Adam  and  Eve  is  depicted,  and  also  their 
expulsion  from  that  paradise  in  which  their  very  natures 
forbade  them  to  remain.  Round  about  them  are  the 
forms  of  those  who  would  show  mankind  the  road  to 
another  paradise,  sibyls  and  prophets,  foretellers  of  the 
future,  teachers  and  guides  towards  a  higher  life.  Near 
them  stand  the  ancestors  of  Him  who  shall  in  time 
appear  as  an  embodiment  of  this  higher  life,  fulfilling  the 
hopes  deferred  for  many  thousand  years,  and  crowning 
the  steadfast  expectation  of  the  faithful. 

These  pictures  represent  the  most  fervent  longings  of 
mankind,  longings  which,  in  an  infinite  variety  of  forms, 
strive  to  express  themselves,  and  which  have  become 
clearly  articulate  in  the  writings  of  great  dreamers, 
religious  and  profane.  These  longings  are  manifest 
during  the  whole  history  of  human  thought,  in  the 
enthusiastic-ecstatic  epochs,  and  in  those  of  rationalistic 
positivism.  They  are  the  natural  yearnings  for  a  higher 
state  of  existence,  for  more  perfect  conditions,  in  which 
an  imperfect  humanity  may  advance  towards  enlighten- 
ment and  a  higher  life. 

The  religious  conceptions  which  at  one  time  appeased 


Vistas,  of  Individuality  243 

these  yearnings  with  promises  of  salvation  in  the  next 
life  have  now  been  supplanted  by  evolutionary  ideas. 
Expectations  have  been  raised  of  a  possible  development 
towards  greater  and  still  greater  perfection,  which,  in  a 
happier  future,  will  be  the  result  of  the  labours  of 
untold  generations. 

These  evolutionary  ideas,  expressed  with  almost 
religious  ardour,  have  found  their  most  perfect  exponent 
in  Nietzsche's  Zarathustra,  who  comes  to  teach  the 
Superman.  The  present  state  of  mankind  appears  to 
him  to  be  one  of  transition  and  decline,  an  arrow  of 
longing  directed  towards  that  new  and  higher  form 
which  it  will  one  day  reach. 

This  same  desire  for  a  more  perfect,  more  harmonious 
form  of  life,  free  from  the  senseless  incubus  of  elemental 
forms,  is  interwoven  with  all  these  sexual  problems. 
For  it  is  in  the  domain  of  sex,  which  binds  the  perma- 
nent characteristics  of  the  individual  to  the  transitory 
and  to  the  species  of  which  he  is  a  member,  that  all 
human  strivings  towards  higher  conditions  of  existence 
will  take  place. 

The  extraordinary  interest  now  taken  in  this  problem 
— in  its  lowest  manifestations  merely  an  inquisitive 
plunging  into  sexual  shallows — in  its  highest  an  un- 
wearying analysis  of  all  phases  of  the  relations  of  men 
towards  women — declares  itself  as  a  symptom  of  dis- 
cordant conditions  from  which  a  new  order  can  only  be 
evolved  by  recognition  of  the  new  elements. 

In  all  investigations  concerning  the  male  and  female 
we  come  down  to  two  fundamental  questions :  what  is 
the  meaning  and  value  of  individual  development,  and 
what  should  be  the  aim  of  such  development.?  The 
freedom  of  the  individual,  the  sovereign  right  of  each 

R  2 


244         ^  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

single  person  to  obey  his  own  inward  law,  excludes  all 
generalisations  having  the  form  of  regulations;  but 
social  arrangements  which  are  founded  on  general  values, 
also  the  impulse  towards  a  more  perfect  life  and  a  higher 
development  which  is  most  active  in  the  most  excellent 
individuals,  shows  some  objective  valuation  of  sexual 
characteristics  to  be  necessary. 

It  may  be  that  the  most  manly  men  and  the  most 
womanly  women  are  the  most  perfect  representatives  of 
the  human  species.  Although  they  certainly  do  not 
constitute  the  majority,  still,  the  union  of  such  men  and 
women  may  produce  the  greatest  possible  amount  of 
individual  happiness  and  the  most  perfect  social  condi- 
tions. If  this  were  so  it  would  be  the  duty  and  the 
ideal  of  human  society  to  encourage  the  breeding  of  this 
class,  and  to  suppress  everything  that  would  interfere 
with  its  development.  This  would  necessitate  the 
suppression  of  all  approximation  and  mingling  of  sexual 
characteristics. 

To  claim  that  one  sex  may,  in  its  psychical  aspects, 
be  equal  to,  or  even  comparable  with,  the  other,  is  in 
direct  opposition  to  the  conception  of  a  sharply-defined 
and  personal  difference  in  the  mentality  of  the  sexes,  a 
difference  which  is  supposed  to  be  the  result  of  historic 
human  development,  and  to  indicate  a  high  stage  of 
culture  by  the  separation  of  individuals  into  the  two 
poles  of  manliness  and  womanliness.  According  to  this 
conception,  there  can  be  no  essential  quality  of  human- 
ness,  and  since  human  beings  do  not  exist  except  as 
male  or  female  persons,  there  can  be  development  only 
along  sexual  lines.  There  can  be  no  ideal  of  a  common 
humanity  to  which  the  woman  may  approach  when  she 
develops   male   characteristics,    or   the   man    when   he 


Vistas  of  Individuality  245 

develops  female  traits.  There  can  be  only  a  male  ideal 
and  a  female  ideal,  towards  which  each  individual  must 
strive  according  to  its  sex,  and  from  which  it  must  not 
greatly  differ  lest  it  should  lose  its  status  and  its 
excellence. 

But  for  all  that,  abstract  "  humanity,"  or  "  human- 
ness,"  does  exist  as  a  conception  in  the  thoughts  of  man, 
even  if  not  in  reality.  When  we  say  "  the  human  male," 
or  the  "  human  female,"  we  have  used  an  expression 
that  shows  that  there  is  something  common  to  the  two 
which  designates  the  species. 

This  idea  of  common  traits  between  the  sexes,  how- 
ever sexual  separation  may  dominate  actual  life,  has  at 
all  times  been  recognised  as  of  great  importance.  If  we 
consider  historical  development  of  humanity  from  this 
point  of  view,  we  shall  find  that  the  problem  is  a  very 
old  one,  formerly  expressed  chiefly  in  religious  ideas. 
But  its  formulation  and  accentuation  as  a  feminine 
problem  are  quite  modern. 

Conceptions  concerning  the  nature  of  the  superior 
human  being,  and  all  that  tends  to  raise  him  to  a  higher 
form  of  life,  show  a  deeply-rooted  inclination  in  human 
nature  to  break  through  the  limitations  of  sex.  The 
sexual  differences  belong  to  the  lower  conditions  of 
existence;  in  a  higher  common  state  we  find  a  com- 
bination of  the  two  forms  of  life  in  operation.  When- 
ever the  human  mind  occupies  itself  with  its  relation- 
ship towards  sexuality  this  view  has  appeared  in  many 
varied  forms,  both  bright  and  dark. 

Wrapped  up  in  mythical  symbols  and  allegories,  in 
the  esoteric  unapproachability  of  the  Mysteries,  this 
conception    of    a    combination    of    common   elements 


246        A   Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

appears  in  ancient  cults  under  the  hidden  significance 
possessed  by  hermaphroditism.  In  the  most  ancient 
representations  of  the  Cypriote  Aphrodite  as  a  herma- 
phrodite idol,  we  have  the  coarse  material  conception  of 
corporeal  bi-sexualism.  This,  however,  is  only  a  naive 
expression  of  the  conception  of  perfection,  of  the  divine 
nature  as  an  amalgamation  of  the  two  sexes  in  one 
person.  Other  Greek  gods  also  show  traces  of  this  con- 
ception. Hera  gives  birth  to  Hephaestus  without  the 
co-operation  of  Zeus  in  order  to  declare  her  male  and 
female  nature;  Zeus  brings  forth  Athena  from  his  own 
head.  This  plainly  symbolises  a  mental  process  as  a 
combination  of  male  and  female  functions. 

Even  the  spiritualised  conception  of  God  handed 
down  by  the  Jews  contains  traces  of  the  idea  of  double 
sexuality.  In  the  Hebrew  Kabbala  the  "  Sister  of  the 
Ancient"  appears,  under  the  name  Shekinah,  as  a 
member  of  the  divine  trinity.  One  of  the  conceits  of 
Jewish  mysticism  defines  God  as  a  male  being,  and  the 
Holy  Ghost  as  a  female.  From  their  sexual  union 
was  produced  the  Son,  and  with  Him  the  world. 
(Feuerbach.) 

These  conceptions  are  maintained  even  in  Christian 
thought.  There  are  indications  that  the  Holy  Ghost, 
who  is  represented  in  the  form  of  a  dove,  was  originally 
the  female  element  in  the  trinity.  Among  the  early 
Christian  sects  there  were  some  which  worshipped  the 
Holy  Ghost  as  a  female  deity,  and  even  now  the  Mora- 
vians call  the  Holy  Ghost  the  mother  of  the  Saviour. 
In  the  religious  conceptions  that  now  prevail,  the  female 
element  has,  of  course,  been  excluded  from  the  trinity, 
but  only  to  take  a  more  especial  place  as  the  Immaculate 
Virgin,  the  mother  of  God. 


Vistas  of  Individuality  247 

Thus,  in  this  form  the  old  conception  of  an  unsexual 
or  of  a  supernatural  begetting  continues.  According  to 
this,  men  of  an  extraordinarily  superior  stamp  are  be- 
gotten, not  in  the  usual  way,  but  either  by  a  physical 
descent  of  the  deity,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Greek  heroes, 
or  by  a  virgin  mother  through  the  merely  spiritual  influ- 
ence of  the  divinity,  as  in  the  legends  of  Buddha  and 
Christ.  For  the  vanquisher  of  the  ordinary,  sexually- 
limited  humanity  could  not  owe  his  origin  to  charac- 
teristics which  bind  humanity  to  a  lower  life.  In  one 
of  the  later  paraphrases  of  Paracelsus,  who  calls  the 
sexual  organs  a  "  monstrous  sign,"  there  occurs  the  idea 
that,  according  to  the  original  plan  of  creation,  the 
reproduction  of  human  beings  should  have  been,  not 
"  salnitric,"  or  after  the  manner  of  cattle,  but  "  ilia- 
stric,"  or  by  magical  imagination — in  the  same  way  that 
God  created  the  world  out  of  His  own  essence. 

This  "  iliastric  "  being,  the  original,  godlike,  perfect 
man  before  the  Fall,  is  imagined  as  bi-sexual.  The 
Jewish  mystic  recognises  an  Adam  Kadmon,  the  first 
Adam,  perfect  and  immortal,  who  was  placed  by  God 
in  the  world  as  a  male  and  female  creature.  This  is  the 
same  conception  of  the  original  man  that  appears  among 
the  gnostic  sect,  the  Ophites.  Later,  as  a  punishment 
for  his  arrogance,  the  female  half  was  separated  from 
him  in  the  shape  of  Eve. 

Intimately  connected  with  this  myth  is  the  well- 
known  story  of  Aristophanes  in  Plato's  Symposium.  In 
this  story  men  are  described  as  having  been  originally  of 
a  dual  sex.  This  condition  gave  them  such  strength  and 
ability  that  in  order  to  diminish  their  power  Zeus  cut 
them  in  two  and  made  them  live  as  separate  halves. 
Therefore,  since  every  human  being  is  only  a  part  of  a 


248         A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

former  whole,  the  two  portions  continually  strive  to  be- 
come one  again.  Love  is  the  expression  of  this  endea- 
vour to  restore  the  original  perfection  of  human  nature. 
The  idea  of  such  a  primitive  or  mystical  union,  which 
has  been  expanded  in  the  neo-Platonic  philosophy,  recurs 
continually  in  the  fantasies  of  great  souls  under  the 
influence  of  love.  Michael  Angelo,  in  his  sonnets, 
speaks  of  the  home-sickness  which  draws  him  by  means 
of  the  eyes  of  his  beloved  back  to  "  Eden  where  we 
were  playmates  once."  Goethe,  in  a  poem  to  Frau  von 
Stein,  avers  :  "  Ah!  in  former  ages  thou  wast  my  sister 
or  my  wife,"  and  Schiller  has  expressed  the  same  idea  in 
his  Geheimnis  der  Reminiszenz,  addressed  to  Laura 
with  all  the  passionate  ardour  of  his  youthful  days : 

"  Waren  wir  im  Strahl  eriosch'ner  Sonnen  schon  in  Eins  zerronnen  ? 
Ja  wir  waren's !   .   .  . 

In  innig  festverbundnem  Wesen  waren  wir  ein  Gott  .   .   . 
Weine,  Laura !   Dieser  Gott  ist  nimmer ;   du  und  ich  des   Gottes 
schone  Trummer." 

But  this  digression  into  the  domain  of  ethereal  love, 
where  sexuality  is  merged  with  the  noblest  tendencies 
of  human  nature,  has  no  particular  purpose  beyond 
proving  the  fact  that  these  illusions  are  symptomatic  of 
a  special  sort  of  sexual  sensitiveness  which  has  its  root 
in  the  identical  conceptions  we  have  been  discussing. 

This  condition  of  perfection  due  to  the  unity  of  the 
sexes  in  primitive  ages  is  closely  connected  with  the 
transformation  from  one  sex  into  another.  In  the  Greek 
world,  standing  out  above  all  the  rest,  are  two  figures 
who  undergo  this  transformation.  The  seer  Tiresias, 
the  superman  of  prescience,  who  stands  on  the  boundary 
line  between  the  human  and  the  divine,  transformed 
himself  into  a  woman,  and  after  nine  months  changed 


Vistas  of  Individuality  249 

himself  back  again  from  a  woman  into  a  man.  Hercules, 
the  superman  of  action,  who  had  traversed  the  whole 
cycle  of  human  labour,  was  in  his  relations  with 
Omphale  a  symbol  of  the  same  idea,  although,  indeed, 
in  this  case  the  actual  treatment  of  it  is  very  common- 
place. 

To  this  category  also  belong  those  orgiastic  festivals 
of  ancient  civilisations  in  which  men  and  women  ex- 
changed their  clothes,  a  symbolic  action  having  the 
esoteric  significance  that  the  sexes  may,  through  this 
exchange,  attain  to  a  higher  stage  of  life.  In  order  to  be 
able  to  penetrate  into  the  deepest  mysteries  of  life,  the 
male  must  accept  something  from  the  female;  he  must 
have  a  desire  to  overcome  the  limitation  of  sex  and 
abandon  the  ordinary  views  of  the  profane  multitude, 
that  is  to  say,  the  belief  in  an  absolute  and  indivisible 
development  of  masculinity. 

The  energetic  barbaric  expression  of  this  desire  was 
the  rite  of  mutilation  which  the  priests  of  Cybele  under- 
went. After  that  operation  they  were  also  obliged,  in 
order  to  rid  themselves  of  all  male  characteristics,  to 
shave  off  their  beards  and  to  wear  women's  clothes.  The 
idea  that  it  is  necessary  for  a  man  seeking  the  higher 
life  to  abandon  all  the  outward  signs  of  sex  still  finds  an 
echo  in  that  catholic  custom  which  prescribes  that  priests 
shall  not  wear  beards  and  shall  wear  the  dress  assigned 
to  females — a  cassock  reaching  to  the  feet.  When  the 
apostle  Paul  speaks  of  those  who  "  made  themselves 
eunuchs  for  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven's  sake,"  the 
allusion  to  the  ancient  rite  and  its  application  to  the  new 
doctrines  are  unmistakable. 

Conceptions  which  in  the  ancient  world  were  con- 
cealed  beneath    the   mysteries   of   various   cults   were 


250         A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

brought  by  Christianity  into  the  light  of  day,  and  made 
accessible  to  all  mankind  as  a  new  ideal  of  life.  Never 
have  the  renunciation  and  the  suppression  of  sexuality 
been  more  strongly,  more  comprehensively,  or  more 
convincingly  advocated  than  by  the  upholders  of  this 
new  ideal.  The  Pauline  saying,  ''  Here  is  neither  Jew 
nor  Greek,  neither  bond  nor  free,  neither  male  nor 
female,  but  ye  are  all  one  in  Jesus  Christ,"  shows  most 
clearly  that  Christianity  embraced  all  humanity  without 
distinction  of  race,  rank,  or  sex.  As  long  as  its  attitude 
towards  worldly  affairs  was  consistent,  Christianity 
recognised  no  distinction  between  the  two  sexes  as  to 
their  moral  worth,  for  it  expected  its  followers  to  be  far 
above  all  sexuality.  Manliness  and  womanliness  came 
not  within  the  ken  of  this  view  of  life. 

If,  however,  we  accept  Hartpole  Lecky's  view  that 
the  transition  from  the  ancient  to  the  Christian  ideal  of 
life  was  a  transition  from  the  male  to  the  female  ideal, 
then  we  must  admit  that  the  male  had  to  give  up  all 
that  was  specifically  masculine  in  his  nature.  The  sex 
virtues  are  entirely  absent  from  the  spiritual  charac- 
teristics of  the  saints;  both  sexes  are  alike  in  their  man- 
ner of  life  and  thought.  Fine  qualities  of  specifically 
sexual  character  belong  only  to  secular  or  lower  life;  the 
fact  that  Christian  precepts  were  not  always  based  on 
the  supposition  that  in  the  Christian  community  there 
were  neither  male  nor  female,  is  only  a  sign  of  that 
divergence  between  theory  and  practice  which  is  common 
to  all  human  endeavour. 

Apart  from  religious  conceptions  and  ascetic  renun- 
ciation of  sex,  there  are  other  symptoms  that  point  to  a 
striving  towards  unity  independent  of  sex.  Christianity 
sought  to  raise  mankind  to  a  higher  plane  by  grafting 


Vistas  of  Individuality  251 

female  traits  into  the  male  nature;  the  Renaissance  in 
which  so  many  ancient  elements  come  again  to  life,  set 
up  the  masculine  type  as  a  pattern  for  women.  It  was 
considered  a  distinction  for  a  woman  to  have  mental 
excellences  similar  to  those  possessed  by  men.  At  that 
period  the  woman  of  good  position  had  to  strive  in  the 
same  way  as  a  man  towards  attaining  a  definite  per- 
sonality, complete  in  every  respect.  The  same  condition 
of  heart  and  mind  that  made  a  man  perfect  was  also 
supposed  to  make  a  woman  perfect,  ...  we  have  only 
to  notice  the  thoroughly  masculine  bearing  of  the 
women  in  the  legends  of  the  heroes,  and  in  the  composi- 
tions of  Bojardo  and  Ariosto,  to  recognise  that  there  is 
a  definite  ideal  in  all  of  them."  (Burckhardt,  Civilisa- 
tion in  the  Renaissance  Period.)  It  was  considered  as 
the  noblest  bond  between  man  and  woman  "  if  their 
hearts  were  fired  with  the  same  feelings,  their  bodies 
animated  with  the  same  glowing  soul,  so  that  each 
should  have  an  equal  impulse  towards  a  higher  life,  .  .  . 
and  each  should  choose  the  other  as  lord  and  master." 

These  are  the  words  of  that  man,  gifted  with  a  lofty 
prophetic  soul,  who  created  the  Jesus-Apollo,  the  god 
of  a  renovated  world,  the  superhuman  compound  of  two 
great  culture  epochs.  Michael  Angelo  did  not  set  his 
Messiah  "  on  the  right  hand  of  God,"  as  Christian  tradi- 
tion had  done,  in  order  that  as  an  immortal  judge  he 
might  choose  the  righteous  and  reject  the  wicked;  no, 
at  his  side  appears  the  woman  who,  with  the  compassion 
born  of  perfect  understanding,  bends  mercifully  not  only 
towards  the  saved  but  also  towards  the  damned. 

The  Christian,  like  the  Renaissance  ideal,  was  realised 
only  in  a   few   individuals,   the   highest   examples   of 


252        A  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

humanity.  But  if  we  search  for  the  traces  of  this  ideal 
in  literature  we  shall  find  that  it  is  not  altogether  lost. 
It  is  strikingly  evident  in  that  glorious  period  from  the 
end  of  the  eighteenth  to  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  Many  of  Goethe's  phrases  are  based  on  this 
ideal  of  sexual  unity.  He  declared  that  woman  could 
profitably  acquire  certain  masculine  qualities,  "  for  if  she 
could  add  energy  to  her  other  excellences,  she  would 
form  the  most  perfect  being  that  could  be  imagined." 
To  Julia  he  addressed  these  words  :  "  With  happy  skill 
thou  dost  unite  a  manlike  strength  to  woman's  tender- 
ness." Finally,  we  may  recall  that  esoteric  phrase,  so 
full  of  meaning  and  so  little  understood,  "  the  eternal 
feminine  draws  us  onward." 

Then  there  is  that  strange  creation  Mignon.  Goethe 
himself,  in  his  conversations  with  the  Chancellor  von 
Muller,  says  that  the  whole  romance  was  written  for  her 
sake,  and  that  underlying  all  of  the  other  characters  there 
is  a  strain  of  something  more  noble  and  more  uni- 
versal. It  is  impossible  to  mistake  the  artistic  intention 
of  creating  a  being  whose  soul  was  unburdened  by  sex. 
The  fine  poetic  glamour  that  surrounds  this  figure 
belongs  partly  to  the  child,  the  sexless  being  of  reality, 
partly  to  the  angel,  the  sexless  being  of  the  imagination. 
"  Let  me  but  seem  to  be  till  I  may  be  .  .  .  and  those 
heavenly  forms  no  question  make  of  woman  or  of  man." 

Balzac's  Seraphita  is  related  to  Mignon,  but  has  a 
more  evident  intention  of  showing  the  mystical  com- 
bination of  male  and  female  qualities.  She  is  a  being 
far  excelling  the  ordinary  run  of  mortals :  she  is  of  lofty 
spiritual  origin,  to  the  maiden  who  loves  her  she  appears 
a  perfect  man,  in  the  eyes  of  the  man  who  loves  her  she 
is  a  perfect  woman.    There  is  a  strong  personal  interest 


Vistas  of  Individuality  253 

in  the  history  of  the  evolution  of  this  character,  because 
Balzac  created  it  to  please  the  woman  whom  he  loved, 
and,  as  he  says  in  his  dedication,  "  in  the  form  dreamed 
of  by  you  and  by  me,  too,  when  I  was  still  a  child." 

The  men  of  that  epoch  have  thought  more  freely 
and  more  deeply  over  the  sex  question  than  the  men  of 
the  present  day.  Chateaubriand,  in  his  Memoirs^  makes 
this  admission,  so  seldom  made  by  men,  that  if  he  had 
had  his  choice  he  would  have  created  himself  as  a  woman 
on  account  of  his  preference  for  women.  Gentz,  in  a 
letter  to  Rahel  Varnhagen,  wrote  quite  frankly :  "  Do 
you  know,  my  dear  one,  why  our  intercourse  has  become 
so  perfect.'*  I  will  tell  you.  You  are  an  infinitely  pro- 
ductive being  while  I  am  infinitely  receptive.  You  are  a 
great  man,  and  I  am  the  first  of  all  the  women  that  have 
ever  lived." 

It  sounds  like  a  commentary  on  that  famous  passage 
at  the  end  of  Faust  when  we  read  in  Daumer's  Religion 
of  the  New  Age :  "  The  submission  of  human  beings 
to  what  is  natural,  the  submission  of  the  male  to 
the  female  is  .  .  .  the  highest  and,  indeed,  the  only 
virtue  and  holiness  that  can  exist."  In  his  Confidential 
Letters^  Schleiermacher  expresses  similar  ideas  about 
Schlegel's  Lucinde :  "  At  last  the  true  and  heavenly 
Venus  has  been  discovered,  ...  a  being  of  the  deepest 
and  holiest  feelings,  created  by  merging  and  uniting  the 
two  halves  of  humanity  into  one  mystic  whole.  Those 
whose  eyes  cannot  thus  pierce  into  divinity  and  into 
humanity  and  cannot  comprehend  the  mysteries  of  this 
religion,  are  not  worthy  to  be  citizens  of  the  new  world." 

In  the  same  strain  he  has  composed  his  Catechism 
of  Reason  for  Noble  Women^  in  which  he  writes  :  "  I 
believe  in  the  infinite  humanity  which  existed  before  it 


254         ^  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

assumed  the  cloak  of  the  masculine  and  the  feminine. 
...  I  believe  in  the  power  of  will  and  of  cultivation  to 
bring  me  back  into  the  infinite,  .  .  .  and  to  make  me 
independent  of  the  bonds  of  sex." 

Lucinde  itself,  that  worthy,  earnest,  virtuous  work, 
as  Schleiermacher  calls  it,  contains  passages  in  which 
the  suspension  of  sexual  antithesis  is  highly  praised. 
Thus,  Friedrich  Schlegel  calls  the  exchanging  of  the 
parts  in  the  play  of  love  "  a  wonderfully  intelligent 
allejTory  of  the  perfecting  of  the  male  and  female  into 
one  entire  human."  When  he  describes  "  the  per- 
manent feeling  of  harmonious  warmth  "  as  the  highest 
stage  of  love,  he  declares  that,  "  When  a  youth 
feels  thus  he  loves  no  longer  as  a  mere  man,  but  at  the 
same  time  also  as  a  woman.  In  him  is  humanity  per- 
fected, and  he  has  climbed  to  the  very  highest  summit 
of  life." 

Human  personality  becomes  hermaphrodite  not  only 
as  a  result  of  overpowering  love  causing  a  mingling  of 
two  beings  and  an  "  exchange  of  souls,"  but  also 
through  that  great  preponderation  of  intellect  which  is 
produced  by  living  in  the  domain  of  the  higher  culture. 
According  to  Schopenhauer's  interpretation  of  the  world, 
in  which  he  makes  the  will  the  primary  or  male,  the 
intellect  the  secondary  or  female  principle,  man  in  his 
intellectual  characteristics  must  be  a  male-female  being 
produced  by  the  union  of  these  two  principles  in  one 
individual;  a  deduction  which,  however,  was  not  actually 
reached  by  Schopenhauer  himself.  We  need  not  lay 
much  stress  on  this  arbitrary  and  metaphysical  indica- 
tion of  man's  natural  inclination  towards  sex  analogies. 

The  contemplative  condition  produced  by  continual 


Vistas  of  Individuality  255 

intellectual  occupation  also  causes  an  approximation  of 
the  male  to  the  female  character.  Nietzsche,  who  other- 
wise was  an  advocate  of  extreme  sex-differentiation, 
repeatedly  points  out  the  similarity  to  a  woman  produced 
in  a  man  by  mental  pregnancy,  an  analogy  of  which 
he  is  so  fond  that  he  has  employed  it  with  several 
variations. 

It  is  a  matter  of  common  observation  that  the  man  of 
genius  does  not  show  the  psychic  characters  of  extreme 
sex  differentiation,  but  in  many  ways  approximates  to 
the  female,  and  even  to  the  child.  Perhaps  this  is  on 
account  of  his  greater  irritability — which  is  considered 
as  a  peculiarity  of  the  feminine  sex — owing  to  which 
external  stimulations  act  more  swiftly  and  more  strongly 
upon  him  than  upon  the  ordinary  run  of  men.  The 
intensity  of  these  external  impressions,  together  with  the 
energy  of  the  impulses  from  within,  produces  that  un- 
reliable temperament  manifested  in  men  of  genius  as  an 
unaccountable  and  uncontrollable  changeability  of  mood 
— which  is  likewise  supposed  to  be  a  special  characteristic 
of  the  feminine  sex. 

That  well-known  symptom  of  feminine  sensitiveness, 
a  predisposition  towards  weeping,  is  also  shared  by  men 
of  genius.  Goethe,  for  instance,  was  easily  moved  to 
tears.  It  was  also  Goethe  who  recognised  in  himself  a 
peculiarity  which  is  specially  female,  receptivity;  that 
is  to  say,  a  power  of  vitally  assimilating  strange  and 
alien  things.  Unless  it  possess  a  receptivity  beyond 
the  ordinary  measure  of  mankind,  genius  cannot  con- 
tinue its  existence,  receptivity  is  quite  as  necessary  to  it 
as  that  productivity  which  is  generally  considered  as  its 
most  essential  feature.  Genius  is  not  to  be  regarded 
as  an  augmentation  of  the  specifically  male  nature,  but 


256         A  Survey  of  the   Woman  Problem 

as  an  expansion  beyond  the  limitations  of  individual  sex 
differentiation.  It  is  a  synthesis  of  the  male  and  female 
nature  which  is  also  exemplified  in  women  of  genius, 
who  likewise  show  no  extreme  sex  differentiation,  but 
more  often  approximate  to  the  male  type. 

In  the  relationship  between  the  conscious  and  the 
unconscious  life,  genius  also  appears  as  a  synthesis. 
Ricarda  Huch  mentions  it  in  her  book  upon  the  golden 
age  of  romance.  The  men  who  act,  as  it  were,  uncon- 
sciously, she  classes  as  the  male  type,  those  who  have 
perception,  and,  being  conscious  of  it,  cannot  trans- 
mute it  into  action,  she  classes  as  the  artistic  or  female 
type;  genius,  she  thinks,  unites  the  two  qualities,  and  is 
both  male  and  female.  As  a  corollary  of  this  deduction, 
she  considers  that  the  harmoniously  constituted  "  men 
of  the  future  "  will  have  an  hermaphrodite  character. 

The  most  striking  example  of  how  manifestly  mental 
productivity  can  assume  the  character  of  herma- 
phroditism, is  afforded  by  the  conceptions  of  men  of 
genius  which  Richard  Wagner  expressed  when  discuss- 
ing the  connection  between  poetry  and  music.  He 
himself,  being  a  poet  as  well  as  a  musician,  considered 
musical  composition  as  a  female  function.  "  Music  is  a 
woman,"  and  cannot  be  fruitful  unless  impregnated  by 
the  male  word.  Boldly  and  profoundly  he  has  elaborated 
this  idea  in  his  Opera  and  Drama.  His  views  about 
specific  sexuality  are  shown  by  such  sentences  as,  "  The 
truly  female  is  only  to  be  thought  of  as  the  highest  form 
of  love's  longing,  whether  manifested  in  a  man  or  in  a 
woman  ";  or,  "  The  connection  between  intelligence  and 
feeling  is  purely  human,  and  is  distinctive  of  the  human 
race.  Both  the  female  and  the  male  are  sustained  by 
what  is  purely  human;  they  do  not  become  human  until 


Vistas  of  Individuality  257 

united  in  the  bonds  of  love."  Therefore,  he  did  net 
hesitate  to  ascribe  the  excellence  of  the  music  of 
Mozart's  Don  Juan  to  the  fact  that  here  "  the  composer 
is  shown  by  the  character  of  his  music  to  have  had  the 
nature  of  a  loving  woman";  and  the  greatness  of 
Beethoven,  who  felt  the  necessity  of  seeking  the  help 
of  a  poet  for  his  principal  works,  he  ascribes  to  his 
having  become  "  an  entire,  that  is  to  say,  a  complete, 
human  being,  subject  to  the  conditions  both  of  the  male 
and  of  the  female." 

It  is  not  the  objective  meaning  of  these  sentences  in 
their  aspect  as  theories  about  music,  but  the  subjective 
and  symptomatic  significance — the  conception  that  a 
perfect  human  being  must  be  subject  to  the  conditions 
both  of  the  male  and  of  the  female,  that  comes  into 
consideration  here.  Emerson  also  expresses  the  same 
idea  when  he  says,  "  In  the  brain  there  are  both  male 
and  female  qualities,  ...  in  the  mental  world  we  prac- 
tically change  our  sex  every  moment."  This  is  his 
commentary  on  the  ideas  of  Swedenborg,  that  mysteri- 
ous spirit  so  difficult  to  understand,  under  whose 
influence  Balzac  wrote  his  romance  Seraphita.  Strind- 
berg— in  every  way  a  man  whose  nature  was  decidedly 
masculine — rose  to  such  a  pitch  as  to  say,  "  For  a  man 
to  love  a  child  it  is  necessary  that  he  should  put  away 
his  masculinity  and  become  a  woman  and  love  with  the 
sexless  love  of  the  angels,  as  Swedenborg  calls  it." 

It  would  be  a  great  mistake  to  regard  the  views  ex- 
pressed in  these  passages,  which  have  been  culled  at 
random  and  do  not  represent  all  that  has  been  said  in 
this  strain,  as  merely  a  symptom  of  a  pathological  varia- 
tion from  normal  sexuality.    They  are  the  expression  of 


258  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

views  which  lead  us  into  the  highest  mental  planes, 
they  are  the  conceptions  of  the  noblest  and  most  distin- 
guished men  of  their  time;  they  are  ideas  which  come 
to  the  front  much  more  decidedly  in  the  golden  age  of 
culture  than  in  periods  of  decline.  Those  I  have  quoted 
refer  exclusively  to  mental  conditions  described  either 
literally  or  else  symbolically.  There  is  no  allusion  to 
any  latent  bodily  bi-sexuality.  No  one  can  doubt  that 
physiologically  the  course  of  evolution  towards  homo- 
logous monosexuality,"  towards  definite  sex-differentia- 
tion in  the  individual,  constitutes  the  most  desirable 
tendency.  Every  deviation  from  the  normal  physio- 
logical sex  characteristics  renders  the  individual  an 
imperfect  being;  bodily  hybridism  is  repulsive  because 
it  indicates  incompleteness,  a  defective  and  faulty 
structure.  A  human  being  cannot  possess  real  health 
and  beauty  unless  the  body  is  perfect  sexually  as  well 
as  in  every  other  respect.  It  must  not,  however,  be 
forgotten  that  both  sexes  have  been  developed  from  an 
originally  hermaphrodite  organism,  and  traces  of  this 
double  sexuality  will  be  found  in  each.  According  to 
the  latest  biological  theories,  it  seems  probable  that 
traces  of  double  sexuality  will  be  found  to  be  permanent 
in  all  the  more  highly  organised  beings. 

While  it  is  an  advantage  that  modern  thought, 
regarding  all  problems  by  the  light  of  natural  science, 
and  not  merely  from  the  moral  point  of  view,  has  con- 
sidered mental  phenomena  as  processes  of  nature,  yet  it 
is  a  great  defect  that  it  has  no  standards  of  comparison 
except  those  of  the  majority,  of  the  average.  From  the 
point  of  view  of  natural  science,  the  average  is  to  be 
taken  as  the  normal,  and  it  regards  every  deviation 
from  this   as  a  symptom   of   disease  or  degeneration. 


Vistas  of  Individuality  259 

This  confusion  between  the  normal  based  on  the 
average,  and  the  normal  based  on  the  best  specimens 
of  the  species,  deprives  scientific  conceptions  of  a  proper 
standard  for  estimating  the  highest  and  most  uncommon 
individuals  of  the  human  race.  According  to  these 
conceptions,  the  average  man  is  the  exclusive  type  of 
what  is  sound  and  healthy,  therefore  the  man  who  is  far 
above  the  average  is  necessarily  classed  as  an  abnor- 
mality. No  consideration  is  given  to  the  fact  that  such 
a  man  bears  the  signs  and  presages  of  a  higher  develop- 
ment, things  which,  from  the  evolutionary  point  of  view, 
are  of  the  greatest  value.  These  signs  ought  not  to  be 
considered  as  pathological,  because  genius  betokens 
greater  functional  activity,  while  a  pathological  state 
lowers  this  activity. 

This  habit  of  considering  the  average  man  is  the 
cause  of  the  smug  dead-level  and  dreariness  of  modern 
mental  life.  The  highest  and  best  examples  are  put  on 
one  side  as  factors  in  the  life  of  the  community,  and 
ordinary,  e very-day  people  are  given  a  higher  place  than 
they  deserve.  In  the  horrible  "  levelled-down-to-the- 
average"  culture  of  the  present  day  the  average  man, 
equipped  with  a  theoretically  developed  intelligence,  is 
the  predominating  factor,  and  he  regards  himself  as  the 
proper  pattern  for  the  rest.  But  the  standard  of  Fantasy, 
of  Impulsiveness,  of  Introspection,  or  of  any  other 
quality  characteristic  of  individuality  which  is  now  con- 
sidered normal,  is  not  the  same  as  it  was  a  hundred  years 
ago,  and  possibly  it  will  again  be  different  even  in  the 
coming  generation. 

If  we  look  upon  human  thought  as  one  of  the  pro- 
cesses of  nature,  we  must  also  consider  the  various  views 

s  2 


260  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

on  sexuality  as  symptoms  of  the  various  forces  working 
in  the  race.  These  views  are  so  opposed,  and  recur  so 
constantly,  dividing  the  individuals  of  each  sex  into 
groups,  that  we  may  suppose  two  opposing  tendencies 
to  be  working  in  the  evolution  of  the  human  race.  One 
is  directed  towards  the  preservation  of  the  race  character 
common  to  both  sexes,  while  the  other  tends  towards 
the  teleological  differentiation  of  each.  One  strives  for 
a  human  type  irrespective  of  male  or  female,  strengthen- 
ing the  characteristics  of  the  race  common  to  both  sexes, 
the  other  tries  to  produce  extremes  of  sexuality  and 
requires  differentiation  for  the  sake  of  reproduction  and 
transmission. 

In  these  two  tendencies  we  see  the  opposing  funda- 
mental forces  which  maintain  the  equilibrium  of  nature. 
The  individuals  in  whom  the  centripetal  tendency  of 
the  race  is  predominant  are  inclined  to  attach  most 
importance  to  the  characteristics  common  to  the  two 
sexes,  and  to  consider  sex-differences  as  secondary  and 
subordinate,  or  even  to  disregard  them.  Individuals 
with  centrifugal  tendencies  consider  sexual  contrast  as  a 
cardinal  point  in  moral  development,  and  hold  every 
approximation  to  the  common  human  type  to  be  an 
aberration  or  degeneration. 

From  the  purely  contemplative  standpoint,  each 
tendency  seems  natural,  and  the  struggle  between  them 
appears  as  a  necessary  condition  for  development. 
However,  as  soon  as  we  cease  to  be  mere  "  seekers  after 
knowledge,"  and  begin  to  act  and  to  exercise  our  judg- 
ment as  members  of  this  human  race,  we  are  obliged  in 
the  course  of  nature  to  play  the  part  assigned  to  us  by 
our  own  fundamental  qualities.  Our  impartiality  cannot 
extend   farther   than  a   theoretical  recognition    of    the 


Vistas  of  Individuality  261 

inevitability  of  the  struggle.  Even  if  we  confess  that 
our  views  are  merely  subjective,  we  are  still  obliged  to 
regulate  our  life  and  actions  according  to  these  subjective 
views. 

Therefore,  the  ideas  about  the  results  likely  to  be 
produced  by  continual  development  in  the  two  sexes  will 
differ  considerably  in  different  individuals.  The  influ- 
ence of  civilisation,  which  especially  tends  to  produce  a 
greater  and  accentuated  diversity  in  individual  life, 
includes  the  possibility  of  evolution  towards  the  ex- 
tremes of  sexuality,  as  well  as  that  of  approximation  of 
the  two  types.  In  accordance  with  their  individual 
natures,  civilised  people  are  either  more  closely  related 
or  more  widely  separated  in  their  sexuality  than  are 
races  of  savages.  This  would  give  support  to  both 
theories,  and  might  prove  that  the  result  of  human 
evolution  will  be  a  differentiation  towards  the  opposite 
poles  of  sexuality,  or  that  it  will  be  an  approximation 
towards  a  common  human  type. 

That  these  tendencies  should  be  more  active  in  the 
mental  life  of  the  present  day  than  ever  before  is  perhaps 
due  to  the  equilibrium  in  the  relations  between  the  sexes 
having  been  disturbed  by  a  temporary  preponderance 
of  the  centrifugal  tendency.  There  is  some  danger  of 
this  disturbance  causing  a  hypertrophy  of  the  intellectual 
life  on  the  one  side,  and  of  the  emotional  life  on  the 
other.  This  divergence  in  the  character  of  the  two  sexes 
would  in  time  diminish  or  prevent  all  intercourse 
between  them. 

If  we  try  to  distinguish  the  various  types  of  indi- 
viduals according  to  their  psychosexual  qualities,  and 
according  to  the  degree  in  which  these  opposing  ten- 
dencies are  manifested,  we  find  three  types,  the  upholders 


262  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

of  three  different  ideals  with  regard  to  sexual  differ- 
ences. 

The  commonest  type  is  the  acratiCy  the  partially 
developed  being  of  unmitigated  sexuality  whose  whole 
personality  is  determined  by  teleological  sex  charac- 
teristics. All  the  hackneyed  declarations  as  to  what  the 
"  wholly  male  "  and  the  "  truly  female  "  should  be,  and 
do,  are  the  utterances  of  these  acratic  people.  In  ex- 
amples of  this  type,  patterns  of  the  most  manly  man  and 
of  the  most  womanly  woman,  centrifugal  sexuality  finds 
its  best  exponents.  Carried  to  its  extremes,  this  acratic 
tendency  produces  licentious  domineering  masculinity 
and  weak,  insignificant  and  passive,  or  else  crafty,  false 
and  ludicrous  femininity,  forms  of  sex-differentiation 
which  are  the  complements  of  each  other  and  equal  in 
nature  and  in  origin. 

Just  as  acratic  persons  are  part  and  parcel  of  the 
every-day  reality  of  life,  so  do  we  find  iliastric  persons, 
the  highest  type  of  centripetal  sexuality,  citizens,  one 
might  say,  of  another  world  and  strangers  to  this  earth. 
They  have  overcome  sex,  and  through  this  victory 
have  become  endowed  with  higher  supersensual  powers. 
The  most  perfect  representatives  of  iliastric  humanity 
in  western  civilisation  are  the  Christian  saints,  for  in 
their  mental  and  moral  characteristics  all  sexual  differen- 
tiation has  been  thoroughly  eliminated. 

During  the  greater  part  of  the  history  of  man's  mental 
development  we  find  signs  of  an  unwearying  struggle 
to  rise  above  and  beyond  specific  sexuality  in  order  to 
attain  a  higher  condition  of  existence;  in  the  early  days 
of  ancient  civilisation  we  find  it  in  the  priestly  ideals, 
then  in  the  Indian  Yoga  doctrines,  and  in  those  ideas 
which  gave  rise  to  the  knighthood  of  the  Holy  Grail. 


Vistas  of  Individuality  263 

It  is  especially  characteristic  of  Christianity  and  of 
Buddhism,  both  of  which  regard  the  iliastric,  sexless 
condition  as  a  preliminary  stage  towards  the  attainment 
of  the  kingdom  of  heaven  or  of  Nirvana,  a  kingdom  not 
of  this  world  but  of  a  world  of  peace  reposing  in  infinite 
perfection,  in  contradistinction  to  the  world  of  creation 
in  which  the  centrifugal  force  of  movement  rages  in 
everlasting  strife. 

The  importance  that  we  are  to  attach  to  this  most 
extreme  expression  of  centripetal  tendency  must  ulti- 
mately depend  on  our  religious  beliefs,  or  at  least  on 
our  general  outlook  upon  life.  It  may  be  questioned 
whether  the  longing  for  another,  more  perfect  form  of 
life  than  that  conditioned  by  sexuality,  the  longing  for 
an  all-embracing  oneness,  for  undisturbed  repose,  be 
merely  a  symptom  of  an  infirmity  of  will  or  a  manifesta- 
tion of  a  higher  principle  leading  us  on  beyond  the 
ordinary  world  of  corporeal  sensation.  When  this  long- 
ing takes  the  form  of  an  asceticism  hostile  to  life,  of  a 
renunciation  whose  chief  law  is  the  "  mortifying  of  the 
flesh,"  and  particularly  of  sex,  it  must  appear  repugnant 
to  that  view  of  life  which  attaches  most  importance  to 
existence  in  this  world  and  excludes  speculations  about 
the  possibility  of  any  future  life.  For  beliefs  that  are 
founded  upon  conditions  not  applicable  to  this  present 
life  must  seem  unjustifiable  to  those  who  take  that  view. 

The  ascetic  principle,  therefore,  cannot  raise  the 
higher  man  entirely  above  sex,  because  he  does  not  repre- 
sent a  preliminary  stage  for  a  metaphysical  existence  free 
from  sexuality,  but  a  perfecting  of  what  is  attainable 
to  humanity  in  a  form  of  life  bound  body  and  soul  to 
the  earth.  The  representatives  of  higher  humanity  in 
a  monistic  sense  will  be  those  whose  psychophysical 


264  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

constitution  enables  them  to  overstep  the  bounds  of 
sexuality,  and  to  raise  and  increase  the  inward  relation- 
ships between  the  sexes — those  beings  who  are  subject 
to  the  conditions  both  of  the  male  and  of  the  female — 
synthetic  man. 

The  most  favourable  condition  for  a  harmonious 
development  of  personality  is  not  an  extreme,  but  a 
qualified,  sexuality.  In  such  a  personality  there  will  be 
an  equilibrium  of  the  two  opposing  tendencies,  the 
centrifugal  which  seeks  sexual  differentiation  for  every 
individual,  and  the  centripetal  which  maintains  the 
common  characteristics  of  the  race.  Qualified  sexuality 
is  produced  by  all  cultural  influences  which  bring  the 
sexes  nearer  together  and  facilitate  an  interchange 
between  them;  such  influences  are  favourable  to  the 
synthetic  existence  and  the  ideals  of  life  which  arise 
from  it. 

The  standard  of  his  value  as  a  psychosexual  indi- 
viduality each  man  must  estimate  for  himself,  since  it 
is  quite  relative  in  so  far  as  it  regards  his  personal 
destiny.  For  in  this  respect  each  person's  life  can  be 
gauged  only  by  reference  to  his  relation  to  some  indi- 
vidual of  the  other  sex  who  may  be  adequate  for  him. 
For  in  their  relations  to  each  other  their  happiness 
depends  not  so  much  on  the  quantity,  plus  or  minus,  of 
the  manliness  or  womanliness  of  each,  as  on  the  equiva- 
lents which  they  can  offer  each  other.  Therefore  we 
must  not  estimate  single  individuals  according  to  their 
degree  of  manliness  or  womanliness,  but  according  to 
the  equivalents  their  natures  afford. 

The  sex  relationships  of  acratic  persons  may  also  be 
subjectively  very  happy.  The  man  who  possesses  the 
concomitants  of  his  domineering  sexual  nature  will  give 


Vistas  of  Individuality  265 

as  much  happiness  to  his  submissive  and  dependent  wife 
as  is  possible  for  such  people,  if  by  virtue  of  his 
domineering  habits  he  is  able  to  be  her  protector,  sup- 
porter, and  defender.  It  is  not  the  one-sidedness  of 
sex-differentiation  which  is  primarily  the  source  of 
happiness  or  unhappiness  for  individuals.  Unhappiness 
is  produced  by  a  deficiency  of  the  concomitants  in 
dyscratic  natures,  those  natures  in  which  the  synthesis 
is  not  fully  perfected,  so  that  they  have  some  of  the 
tendencies  of  the  acratic  type  and  some  of  the  synthetic. 
A  woman  who  by  her  erotic  disposition  is  bound  to  be 
submissive  and  subjugated,  and  yet  otherwise  is  desirous 
of  having  a  freely  personal  life,  or  a  man  who  must  be 
a  sexual  dictator  to  a  woman  without  having  that  per- 
sonal energy  which  also  gives  power  outside  the  sexual 
sphere — both  of  these,  by  reason  of  the  dyscrasy  of  their 
nature,  will  be  unable  to  live  in  harmonious  relations 
with  a  member  of  the  other  sex  or  to  find  sexual 
equilibrium. 

Except  for  the  individual,  these  estimates  concerning 
happiness  are  not  of  much  value;  but,  considered  objec- 
tively, the  enrichment  and  broadening  of  the  individual 
life  which  result  from  the  amalgamation  of  two  people 
of  different  sex  is  of  immense  advantage.  The  synthetic 
being  is,  in  this  respect,  superior  to  the  acratic,  just  as 
the  man  who  can  see  is  superior  to  the  blind  man, 
although  the  latter  may  not  be  aware  of  his  inferiority, 
and  may,  under  certain  circumstances,  even  lead  a 
happier  life. 

Acratic  and  synthetic  persons  have  utterly  different 
ideas  about  love.  You  have  only  to  listen  to  what  the 
most  manly  and  the  most  womanly  think  of  one  an- 
other, or  to  the  descriptions  which  they  give  of  love. 


266  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

They  do  not  strive  for  complete  agreement,  for  un- 
limited devotion,  for  mutual  and  unreserved  confidence; 
in  short,  for  those  relations  which  in  western  civilisation 
have  attained  a  lofty  place  in  our  ideals  of  social 
morality.  That  type  of  sexual  relationship  that  Car- 
penter describes  in  his  book,  Love'^s  Coming  of  Age^ 
a  book  full  of  the  spirit  of  synthetic  humanity,  is  not  at 
all  suitable  for  acratic  people. 

The  distinguishing  mark  of  synthetic  people  is  that 
they  have  an  outlook  over  the  barriers  of  sex,  a  power 
of  sweeping  away  the  bonds  entailed  by  sexuality, 
enabling  them  to  reach  a  mental  sphere  common  to  both 
sexes  of  the  human  species.  The  wider  the  sphere  the 
more  easily  will  the  process  of  amalgamation  be  carried 
out,  the  more  extensive  and  perfect  will  it  be.  Since 
sex  does  not  connote  for  synthetic  people  an  entirely 
different  sort  of  existence,  but  only  a  different  form  of 
being,  they  are  able,  apart  from  sexual  affairs,  to  enjoy 
a  common  existence.  Thus,  they  raise  themselves  to  a 
universality  of  perception  which  is  denied  to  the  acratic. 
Their  nature  acquires  an  element  of  freedom  which 
enables  individuals  of  even  moderate  talents  to  have  a 
liberal  and  intelligent  understanding  of  the  other  sex, 
while  those  who  are  not  synthetic  in  nature  cannot  break 
through  the  barriers  of  their  sex,  even  though  their 
minds  may  be  of  the  most  emancipated  type. 

That  type  of  existence  which  represents  the  most 
extreme  sex-differentiation,  and  assigns  to  the  male 
absolute  activity,  and  to  the  female  absolute  passivity — 
though,  indeed,  this  is  only  an  imaginary  conception, 
and  hardly  likely  to  be  met  with  in  reality — would  ex- 
clude its  participants  from  all  comprehension  of  the  other 
sex,  and  debar  them  from  all  mental  fellowship  in  their 
sexual  alliances.    In  short,  we  may  assume  that  a  man 


Vistas  of  Individuality  267 

can  only  understand  a  woman's  nature  in  the  same  pro- 
portion in  which  he  possesses  this  nature  within  himself, 
and  the  same  statement  will  also  hold  good  for  a  woman. 
The  words  man  and  woman  are  to  be  taken  in  their 
proper  esoteric  sense  as  symbols  of  forces  which  are 
manifested,  more  or  less  strongly,  in  the  inner  life  of 
actual  individuals  of  different  sexes,  taking  the  physio- 
logical analogy  of  receptive  and  negative  for  the 
feminine  force,  creative  and  positive  for  the  masculine. 

Only  for  acratic  beings  does  sexuality  at  the  same  time 
connote  onesidedness  ;  the  synthetic  will  find  that  sex- 
uality is  the  very  condition  which  enables  them  to 
emerge  from  their  own  limited  individual  existence  and 
to  enter  into  a  life  subject  to  other  physical  conditions. 
To  them  the  life  of  the  other  sex  does  not  appear  as 
something  strange  and  unaccountable,  but  as  something 
closely  related,  originally  a  part  of  their  own  life  and 
now  the  complement  of  their  special  individual  existence 
advancing  to  meet  them  from  without. 

It  is  true  that  acratic  persons  seek  in  individuals  of 
the  other  sex  the  complement  of  their  own  natures,  but 
as  they  have  little  or  no  common  ground  of  fellowship 
it  is  only  in  their  opposites  that  they  may  render  their 
natures  more  complete.  The  assumption  that  the 
greatest  contrasts  exert  the  greatest  attraction  for  one 
another  is  based  on  insufficient  observation,  and  is  only 
true  of  the  acratic.  The  erotic  attraction  between  the 
synthetic  is  a  much  more  complicated  phenomenon,  and 
far  more  difficult  to  analyse  than  the  attraction  between 
the  acratic  who,  being  uncompounded,  are  therefore 
more  primitive  and  simple.  The  determining  factors 
are  not  the  number  and  quantity  of  contrasts,  but  the 
particular  sort  that  are  required  to  render  the  individual 


268  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

more  complete.  A  synthetic  woman  will  find  no  per- 
sonal attraction  in  an  acratic  man,  although  in  him  the 
psychical  sexual  contrast  is  infinitely  greater  than  in  the 
synthetic  man,  who  alone  is  able  to  satisfy  her  deepest 
feelings;  nor,  mce-versa^  can  the  synthetic  man  satisfy 
the  acratic  woman. 

We  may  conceive  this  sex-differentiation  as  the  result 
of  a  progressive  movement  which  might  be  represented 
as  the  path  described  by  the  swinging  of  a  pendulum. 
The  principle  of  unity,  which  is  the  basis  on  which  the 
human  race  exists  as  a  species,  might  be  pictured  as  the 
moving  pendulum,  and  the  mutual  attraction  which  is 
determined  by  the  individual  sex-differentiation  might 
be  imagined  as  the  acting  force.  Between  the  two  ex- 
treme points,  equi-distant  from  the  centre,  the  pendulum 
swings  to  and  fro.  Each  point  in  its  arc  of  oscillation 
has  a  corresponding  point  on  the  other  side  of  the 
median  line,  and  at  an  equal  distance  from  it.  The 
extreme  points  of  the  arc  have  the  greatest  distance  from 
one  another,  while  towards  the  middle  the  distances 
between  the  corresponding  points  grow  less.  The  most 
remarkable  positions  of  the  moving  pendulum  are  the 
two  extreme  points,  which  show  the  limits  of  the  path 
and  also  its  greatest  contrasts,  and  the  middle,  which 
represents  a  state  of  rest.  In  between  lie  innumerable 
points  of  a  corresponding  equilibrium.  Inasmuch  as 
these  symmetrically  arranged  points  correspond  to  one 
another,  and  we  regard  one-half  of  the  path  as  the 
domain  of  male  sex-differentiation,  and  the  other  as 
the  female,  then  the  various  sex  individualities  will  be 
seen  to  correspond  to  one  another  and  find  their  expres- 
sion in  the  attraction  that  they  mutually  exert. 

Iliastric  humanity  represents  the  middle  state  of  rest, 


Vistas  of  Indhjiauality  269 

the  acratic  in  its  most  absolute  form  represents  the  ex- 
treme ends  of  the  swing.  The  points  between  the 
middle  and  the  end  may  be  classed  as  inner  or  outer, 
according  to  the  amount  of  their  distance  from  the 
middle  point.  The  nearer  the  middle  the  greater  the 
relationship,  the  farther  from  it  the  greater  the  contrast 
of  the  sexes.  The  outer  group  towards  the  ends  of  the 
path  belong  to  the  domain  of  acratic  humanity,  the  inner 
towards  the  middle  comprise  the  synthetic.  In  this  illus- 
tration it  is  plainly  seen  why,  excluding  all  superficial 
appearances,  there  is  a  great  contrast  not  only  between 
the  two  extremes  of  the  sexes  but  also  why  the  groups 
near  the  middle  are  so  far  removed  from  those  of  their 
own  sex  at  the  very  end  points  that  the  similarity  of  their 
physiological  nature  affords  no  bond  of  fellowship  or 
of  comprehension  between  them.  What  seems  incom- 
prehensible and  contradictory  in  this  sex-differentiation, 
and  in  its  relation  to  individual  differentiation,  as  long 
as  we  look  upon  the  terms  "man"  and  "woman"  as 
absolutely  binding  definitions,  becomes  clear  and  natural 
so  soon  as  we  have  obtained  an  insight  into  the  com- 
plexity  of  psychosexual  phenomena  and  their  relations 
to  one  another. 

Those  who  look  upon  sex-modification  as  a  secondary 
phenomenon,  and  consider  the  typical  sex  peculiarities 
of  human  nature  only  as  the  teleological  conditions  of 
the  sexual  relations  of  the  sexes  to  each  other — condi- 
tions which  will  have  more  or  less  influence  on  each 
individual  according  to  his  mental  constitution — will 
acknowledge  that  a  belief  in  innumerable  gradations  in 
the  psychical  nature  of  the  two  sexes  may  give  a  better 
grasp  of  the  meaning  of  individuality  and  of  its  import- 
ance to  human  society. 


270  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

These  gradations  do  not  mean  (as  Weiniger  thought) 
that  the  approximation  of  the  manly  to  the  womanly 
necessitates  the  man  being  less  manly  or  the  woman 
less  womanly.  They  have  nothing  to  do  with  the 
feminine  man  nor  with  the  masculine  woman,  those  two 
results  of  degeneration  in  the  spheres  of  centrifugal 
sexuality.  The  womanish  man  has  a  lower  sort  of  manli- 
ness, because  the  base  female  peculiarities  which  charac- 
terise him  are  considered  as  defects  even  in  a  woman. 
The  synthetic  man,  however,  does  not  become  lower 
through  his  compound  nature,  he  loses  nothing;  he 
gains.  The  approximation  towards  unity  carries  him 
beyond  sex  towards  what  is  neither  male  nor  female,  but 
purely  human. 

The  higher  life,  the  life  in  the  domain  of  intellect, 
requires  that  the  personality  shall  possess  qualities  which 
transcend  the  limitations  of  the  merely  primitive  life. 
These  qualities  are  not  differentiated  sexually,  for  the 
simple  reason  that  they  have  not  been  acquired  by 
evolution  for  the  benefit  nor  the  purposes  of  sex.  Their 
origin  is  rather  to  be  sought  for  in  religious  strivings  in 
which  the  highest  aim  was  the  overcoming  of  sexuality. 

The  ascetic  renunciation  of  sex  is  intimately  con- 
nected with  the  metaphysical  aspirations  which  have 
such  high  importance  in  the  history  of  human  mental 
progress.  This  association  has  been  taken  as  a  sign  that 
these  aspirations  are  a  symptom  of  the  weakening  and 
decay  of  the  elementary  impulses  of  life.  But  is  it 
not  possible  that  this  association  may  be  interpreted  in 
quite  a  different  way.''  If  all  manifestations  of  con- 
sciousness are  to  be  taken  as  physiological  processes  in 
the  brain,  then  the  mental  history  of  mankind  must  be 
the  history  of  the  increasing  independence  of  the  brain. 


Vistas  of  Individuality  271 

The  conception  formed   by   those  who   hold   dualistic 
views  of  human  existence,  that  sex  is  an  attribute  only 
of  the   body,  the   inferior  and   perishable  part   of   the 
human  being,  while  the  superior  and  immortal  part  is 
sexless  and  the  nearer  perfection  the  more  it  frees  itself 
from  the  claims  of  sex,  suggests  a  special  physiological 
process  of  evolution  for  the  human  organism.     Perhaps 
this  dualistic  conception  is  only  an  expression  of  the 
dualism  of  the  physiological  constitution  which  makes 
the  brain  a  second  and  relatively  independent  organism 
existing  in  the  body.     The  strange  delusion  that  bodies 
are  inhabited  by  a  higher  being,  an  immortal  and  sexless 
soul,  is  perhaps  a  conscious  reflection  of  a  physical  pro- 
cess, just  as  in  dream-life  one  can  often  see  the  erstwhile 
conditions  of  the  organism  appear  within  the  conscious- 
ness symbolised  and  fantastically  modified.     Do  we  not 
have  a  similar  experience  with  the  illusion  of  free  will 
which  is  so  incompatible  with  the  results  obtained  by  a 
study  of  the  human  understanding  .f*     Yet  this  illusion 
is  regarded  as  an  absolute  certainty  by  many  people, 
especially  by  those  who  have  brought  their  sexual  im- 
pulses under  the  control  of  their  will-power.     Is  not  the 
whole   history  of  human  morality,  in  which   the   con- 
trolling and  overcoming  of  sexuality  occupies  so  large  a 
space,  fundamentally  nothing  but  this  struggle  of  the 
brain  for  independence } 

Let  us  leave  metaphysical  paraphrases.  The  develop- 
ment of  the  control  of  certain  centres  of  consciousness 
by  other  centres,  the  existence  of  a  precedence  among 
them  which  indicates  a  submission  of  the  lower  centres 
to  the  guidance  of  the  higher,  is  a  necessary  condition 
for  all  mental  culture.  It  represents  a  most  valuable 
acquirement  when  it  is  the  cause  of  those  inner  conflicts 


272  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

and  resistances  which  alienate  intellectual  men  from  their 
primitive  nature. 

The  underlying  cause  of  this  battling  against  sex  is 
not  the  repulsiveness  and  sinfulness  of  sexuality,  as  those 
people  who  sought  to  free  themselves  from  its  dominion 
were  wont  to  believe.  Retrospectively,  this  battle 
appears  as  a  fierce  evolutionary  struggle  of  humanity  to 
surmount  the  teleological  barriers  of  sex  in  order  to 
obtain  facilities  for  reaching  a  higher  mental  plane. 
The  autonomy  of  the  brain  which  has  been  acquired  by 
this  long  and  weary  struggle  is  permanent,  although  the 
illusions  which  were  begotten  during  its  continuance 
have  now  vanished.  From  this  autonomy  other  ideals 
will  arise  which  will  open  new  perspectives  in  human 
life,  will  give  it  that  brilliancy  and  warmth  and  that 
joyfully  impulsive  force  which  always  accompany  the 
birth  of  new  ideals. 

No  longer  can  the  lives  of  those  who  have  risen 
above  the  average  be  entirely  occupied  with  a  struggle 
against  sex  and  with  combating  the  claims  made  by  the 
race  on  the  individual.  The  reconciliation  between 
race  and  personality  on  a  higher  plane  of  perception  takes 
the  place  of  "  the  mortifying  of  the  flesh,"  that  moral 
ideal  of  a  bygone  epoch  in  the  development  of  mankind. 
But  this  reconciliation  is  only  possible  when  sex  no 
longer  acts  in  any  way  as  a  fetter  on  personality,  either 
in  the  form  of  uncontrollable  impulses  or  in  the  form 
of  teleological  limitations  working  from  within  or  from 
without. 

For  lofty  souls  nothing  is  more  unbearable  than  the 
idea  of  bondage  to  sex.  To  be  excluded  on  account  of 
sex  from  any  possibility  of  development,  from  any 
road  to  knowledge   within  the  realm   of  human  exist- 


Vistas  of  Individuality  273 

ence,  can  but  awaken  in  such  souls  a  hatred  against  sex. 
It  is  they  who  eagerly  reach  towards  those  conditions 
and  habits  of  life  by  which  synthetic  ideas  may  be  pro- 
moted and  strengthened,  for  their  self-consciousness 
does  not  rest  on  the  qualities  which  are  typical  of  their 
sex,  but  on  those  which  lead  them  beyond  their  sex. 

Wonderful  and  indeed  awe-inspiring  is  the  operation 
in  certain  individualities  of  those  characteristics  which 
tend  to  abolish  their  primitive  sexual  nature  because  it 
is  contradictory  to  their  ideals.  For  this  reason  firm  and 
intrepid  self-reliance,  advancing  with  initiative,  inflexi- 
bility, and  strength  of  will,  is  more  to  be  esteemed  in 
a  woman  than  in  a  man.  For  these  qualities  in  a  man 
betoken  only  a  conversion  of  sex  teleology  into  a  higher 
sphere  of  mental  life,  but  in  a  woman  they  show  an 
overstepping  of  the  bounds  set  by  teleological  conditions 
for  the  ordinary  female  individual.  That  is  the  real  gist 
of  the  following  sentence  of  Grillparzer's  :  '^  The  noble 
woman  is  partially,  nay,  wholly,  masculine,  only  her 
failings  make  her  feminine." 

Nature  has  given  the  male  the  great  advantage  of 
allowing  his  teleological  sex  conditions  to  produce  those 
qualities  which  are  favourable  to  the  development  of  free 
personality,  while  the  female  must  first  overcome  her 
teleological  nature  before  she  can  develop  such  qualities. 
But  specific  sex  is  a  barrier  even  for  a  man,  because  it 
excludes  him  from  comprehending  the  other  half  of 
mankind,  and  thus  restricts  him.  Free  in  the  highest 
sense — more  so  than  the  "  wholly  masculine  "  can  ever 
be — will  be  that  man  who  possesses  sufficient  synthetic 
force  to  attain  by  assimilation  a  higher  and  more 
comprehensive  state  of  being.  This  force,  which  is 
wanting  in  the  acratic  man  since  it  is  not  compatible 

T 


274  Survey  of  the  Woman  Problem 

with  his  teleological  sex  nature,  is  nothing  else  than  a 
capacity  for  self-sacrifice.  Sacrifice,  the  only  means  by 
which  the  lonely  *'  ego  "  confined  within  the  limits  of 
his  own  being,  like  a  prisoner  in  an  isolation  cell,  may 
escape  and  associate  with  the  most  precious  thing  the 
world  can  produce — a  human  soul ! 

If  we  trace  the  lines  of  the  past  which  lead  forward 
into  the  future,  we  find  in  unmistakable  outlines  the 
ideal  of  a  humanity  in  which  sex  has  a  better  and  happier 
significance  than  it  has  hitherto  possessed.  Those  moral 
strivings  of  personality  to  break  the  bonds  of  sex  which 
attained  their  climax  In  the  renunciation  of  a  world  based 
on  the  idea  of  creation,  are  now  directed  towards  another 
form  of  life  in  which  there  is  a  possibility  of  overcoming 
the  bonds  of  sex  without  renunciation.  None  but 
synthetic  human  beings  can  be  the  creators  of  this  form 
of  life.  But  it  cannot  be  done  by  men  alone,  without 
the  aid  of  women.  Unless  women  work  with  men  on  a 
footing  of  equality,  this  ideal  cannot  be  realised.  The 
contribution  which  woman  can  make  to  human  culture 
by  reason  of  the  path  she  has  had  to  follow  in  the  course 
of  her  evolution,  is  necessary  for  the  completion  of  man's 
work.  It  is  to  the  honour  of  the  female  sex  that  it  is 
especially  the  women  who,  in  the  mental  culture  of  the 
day,  represent  the  ideal  of  unity,  and  in  this  there  is  a 
guarantee  that  women  will  help  to  realise  it. 

This  ideal  is  not  novel,  it  is  not  a  discovery  that  will 
have  to  be  made  by  some  future  generation,  although 
every  generation  must  make  it  for  itself.  It  is  not  a 
levelling,  constraining  rule  of  a  definite  manner  of 
existence,  but  a  living  form  of  freedom  for  the  indi- 
viduality which   springs  eternally  from   the  breast   of 


Vistas  of  Individuality  275 

Nature,  an  inexhaustible  source  of  new  possibilities  of 
evolution  and  new  forms  of  being. 

Happy  is  he  who  in  his  individuality  possesses  an 
instTument  on  which  the  world  may  play  in  all  its 
wonderful  fulness.  Sexuality  will  be  for  him  a  means 
by  which  he  may  seize  upon  the  very  heart  of  life,  its 
deepest  sorrows  and  its  most  entrancing  joys,  its  most 
dreadful  abysses  and  its  most  radiant  heights. 


Richard  Clay  and  Sons,  Limited, 

brunswick  street,  stamford  street,  s.e. 

and  bungay,  suffolk. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY                  1 

Los  Angeles 

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